The God of this World
to his Prophet

Go to the prosperous city,

for I have taken pity

on its inhabitants,

who drink and feast and dance

all night in lighted halls

yet know their bacchanals

lead nowhere in the end.

Go to them, now, commend,

to those with ears to hear,

a lifestyle more austere.

Tell all my children tired

of happiness desired

and never had that there

is solace in despair.

Say there is consolation

in ruins and ruination

beneath a harvest moon

that is itself a ruin,

comfort, however cold,

in grievances recalled

beside a fire dying

from lack of love and trying.

Bill Coyle

© 2002; originally printed in The Hudson
Review.  Reprinted by permission of the
author.