Many Gods, No Masters
We’re done with ruling and with those who rule, with what they built and all their useless tools.
Image by Yener Ozturk
Surrealist Prophecies #11
The eleventh in a sequence of surrealist prophecies written using the divinatory technique of automatic writing (with subsequent revision). The theme of the sequence is the collapse of our global civilization due to uncontrollable climate change, leading to a mass rejection of both faith and reason and the re-enchantment of our world among the ruins of our failed creations. Some of the poems in the sequence are set before the Fall and portray the spiritual and emotional dilemma of our current crisis. Some describe the Fall itself, and the strange changes in thought and perception that will be needed if any are to survive a world in which humanity has been radically de-centered. Some describe the world to come, a world newly alive with gods and spirits yet free of all dogma or fixed belief – a world of beauty and strange magic.
The eleventh prophecy returns to the theme of the first and the warning of the fifth. The world as we know it has fallen and transformed, and the opportunity exists to make something new and better among the ruins. Gods and monsters haunt the city, but there will be no masters in this world. The title is another reference to an Alley Valkyrie design.
Many Gods, No Masters
Now monsters pull their bodies,
Dripping wet,
Through manholes
From the depths
While others rise
With open eyes
From drops of blood and sweat.
They drip down faces,
Splatter on the street,
Then rise, congealed
To lick the walls like meat.
And here among the broken bricks they’ll breed.
Now reason finally sleeps.
Now faith retreats.
For those who cling to either,
This is hell.
The ocean rises
And the cities swell
With mold and water
Stinking in the heat.
And giants walk on wet and ancient feet.
The broken bones of all our art and pride
Lie rotting in the tide.
All eyes now bleed.
Without a church to specify a creed
Each drop becomes a seed.
A heaving bulk
With sodden hulking grace
Lifts up its face
Its tentacles unfurled
And shrieks its challenge
To the brave new world.
A red splash blooms.
In sagging walls
Of dripping, black-stained rooms
Blood flowers bloom,
And candles flicker bright.
So yes, we’ll pray tonight,
We few who live.
Yet none will beg for life.
And none will give
A penny or a thought
For what we lost.
That ocean has been crossed.
Though gods have come,
These gods do not forgive.
Nor do they judge.
They neither save nor damn.
They bear no grudge.
Each one declares “I AM”
And nothing more.
And we must do the same.
Our gods are flickers in the spreading flame
The roaring of the water
And the light
That plays along these ruined walls
At night.
Our gods are real.
They live in every drop of blood and every spark of wood or steel.
Our dead are dust -
Unless we give them life with every act, in each of us.
Our dead are seeds -
These flowers never bloom with faith
But deeds.
This world is not the world it always seemed.
It’s time to make the world of which we’ve dreamed.
No god shall rule,
No king,
No man shall rule,
No giant either.
There are many gods,
Too many now to count,
Yet none shall rule.
We’re done with ruling
And with those who rule,
With what they built
And all their useless tools.
This city has become the land of fools.
Christopher Scott Thompson
Christopher Scott Thompson is an anarchist, martial arts instructor, devotee of Brighid and Macha, and a wandering exile roaming the earth. Photo by Tam Zech.
