hymn to the fallen angel

If I could worship, as worshippers do
it would be an angel and not a God
it would be one angel and not all
if I could worship
I would one who was noble and young
one who stood up and fought
even though it meant rebellion
one who spoke out, at the price of perdition
against an almighty God
and his puritanical, stuffy ways
from amongst the other angels
and their obsequious and conventional
bureaucratic gaze

I would worship an angel not content
to being seconded by us human brutes
who have not even the will power
to abstain from eating fruit
who on earth are left to founder
beneath the mighty heavens above
yet cannot help but call on heaven
to disguise their fear as love

I do not ponder hordes and beasts
nor demons and fire and skulls
I do not conjure devilry
nor horns or tails or blood
all I see when I think of you
is love for life
not what lies beyond or above
what I see when I think of you
is the true power of life
and what it means to love

I hear music and laughter
I feel the loss of self
in a drunken state of being
I become one with all that I am
shorn of the morals and the laws and the prayers
and all the insipidities
that crawl into our hands
cleansed of all these conniving prophets
teaching godly servitude
in these god-stinking lands

but in you we find the truth
of what in men’s hearts lie
of all the secrets good and dark
despised by cowardly minds
in you we find not salvation
nor open arms stretched out wide
in you we simply find ourselves
and confront life with deeper pride
for in you we see
the tragic nobility
we hunger for deep down inside

but such fancies are bare
and worship I do not
neither angels and prophets
nor devils and gods
even though it is precisely this rebellion
which is what you teach us about
which we do teach ourselves
in stories and myths all aloud
for ultimately
it is our admiration for you
to which we all amount
and even if we do not serve you
we do
yet give ourselves the benefit of the doubt

for beauty and love, freedom and nature
is not what the Christian is about
these bounties are common
to one and to all
and you are the spring, the fount

but as I have said
and will say once more
I will not worship
as worshippers do
and that is why I would
if I could
worship you.