I was an overbold sophist as Zeus might say,
Lightning bolt twitching in his godly fingers.
But why waste any display of power on me?
I'll go anyway. I'll go quietly. The only issue
With any tiny cynic is that one might expose
The God as one of the true believers' night
Sweats, if you know what I mean. I was weak
As anything, but I wasn't claiming to be
Strong. Strength must prove itself and can't,
Can only demonstrate that the weak we
Knew were weak were weak, as if that
Proved the strength of the prover as well
As the proof. No such luck. Khan may mow
A million down, but Khan will still go down,
And even that famous, forked-lightning
Chromosome of his will go down eventually
Or at least when the whole species exits
As species always do. No one is strong,
Not in this universe; no king can hold against
The merest tide, nor can the tide hold
Against the moon, nor the moon, any moon,
Against the end of orbit. So I was wrong
To thumb my nose against the fantasists
Of heaven, but they were not long, either,
For a cosmos so much vaster than them
That they counted as creators of everything
For no time in the scheme of things, nothing
Much in the kingdom of the ever-shifting.
So I sang and felt triumphant, defiantly.
The next minute my eyebrows were singed
And I knew the temporary deity could not
Bear to humor such as me. So I'll go quietly.
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