Aphelion Issue 301, Volume 28
December 2024 / January 2025
 
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The Folly of All Whose Hearts Still Beat

by Ethan Dybowski


The Demiurge of the Cosmos,
sits idle on his weeping throne,
Bloated and festering and oozing,
He hungers.

His belly gurgles and morphs
To the faint shapes of appendages
Belonging to all the sad old chaps
That felt the gnashing of his teeth
And the scraping of their flesh
Off of bone as he belches and
Swells. He smells of maggot rot and a swarm of rats
And that is all he sees us as.

We are enslaved by imaginary numbers and
Beaten bloody by bludgeons and batons,
fighting our good fight
against day to day torment,
While he picks his yellowed grin of ligaments
And pieces of cloth and strands of hair
And his hunger is quenched for but a moment.

What a sick world we live in indeed, as we fight
Our pointless battles while beings beyond
Our eyes and ears and mortal flesh and muscle
Relax and bathe in the glory of power.

We can band together, take what's rightfully ours.
We can hack, slash, stab, burn, claw, bite, rip, tear
And for what?
What can we do
Against a God?


© 2022 Ethan Dybowski

Ethan Dybowski hails from Angola, NY, and is currently in his senior year at SUNY Fredonia as an English major. He's been searching for a place where he could submit his horror poetry and decided that Aphelion sounded like a perfect space for that. He hasn't been writing for long, but he is determined to learn all that he can about writing and what it has to offer.

Find more by Ethan Dybowski in the Author Index.