Bacchus From On High

A Poem by Grant

This was a tough one to write.

There came upon me, as there often does

While settled on my cloud-wrought throne,

The aches and pangs and throbs of boredom

As the beats of eternity drone.

And by that twinge was I incited

To indulge in drink and feast,

And peer down into the affairs of man.

That walking paradox: Civilized Beast.

It isn’t his folly that most intrigues me,

Nor his wishes for riches and fame,

But the hatred he bears for his baser self

And his love for words and names.

Nothing and no one is nameless for long.

“That’s a this” and “these are those.”

“Hi, I’m Jim,” one says to another.

But you’re not ‘Jim.’ You’re an ape with clothes.

And they have this word for a feeling of sorts

That makes them dance and leap and sing.

They all pretend to know what it means,

But to each it means a different thing.

“It’s a madness of the mind.”

“It’s an illusion.” “It’s a game.”

“It’s the mystical force that binds two souls.”

“It’s oxytocin in the brain.”

To us, it’s a narrative device.

It’s not divine. It’s not magic.

Every tale of love must end,

And there is no end that isn’t tragic.

‘Life’ is another so imbued with charm,

As if it were some profound mystery.

It’s a temporary quirk of planets like Earth;

It’s just complex carbon chemistry.

And like their words, their worlds are drenched

In artificial fragility.

They uproot forests to build estates

And then they call it ‘civility.’

They’ve invented selfie sticks and mirrors

And forgot their faces in the firth.

They’ve invented shoes and hardwood floors

And forgot the feeling of earth.

Now, in their hubris and their vanity�"

It is their essence to be so proud�"

They’ve invented gods of their own image,

Like anthropomorphized clouds.

That one there in his black swivel chair

Writes of us “gods” and our “maladies,”

Using all the verbosity and pomp

Of an Aeschylean tragedy:

“I sing laments on the gods’ behalf

And pity their immortality.

How dull their dwelling in the clouds.

To them, how trivial all must be.”

How bold it is for a mortal

To think his mortal words could move me.

Bolder still it is, indeed,

To think it’s him that I should envy.

I’ve had enough of the affairs of man.

I’ve had my fill of drink and feast.

I pull my gaze from that wicked race,

Those self-tamed savages: Civilized Beasts.

Now I, like a cloud if a cloud could speak,

Float slowly in my skies alone,

With the aches and pangs and throbs of boredom,

While the beats of eternity drone.

© 2025 Grant

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Reviews

Vol

Grant,
I've spent a lot of my life figured out whether I am being judged by God or if that's lready hasppened and I am living His judgement.
Actualy, though, that was my first reaction first response to the ultimate question. We already know that many wise folks say the answer, "42." But the question is REQUIRED. Is there more than physical existence as we experience it? The Quantum Physicists seem to think that the universe itself is conscious, and I hope they are right, because everything would begin to make sense. The lack of linear time, the continuation of personal being after what we call death has happened to this collection of mud we are trapped in. The concept of "soul," or "spirit," consciousness unconfined and expanded in a realm we are not equiped to "grock," never bored never boring, but with the experience of eternal JOY in the understanding of all things...
Vol