God the drunken carpenter

God, like his son,
was a carpenter
and a drunken one:
too fond of water to wine,
working loaded
when he forged this Earth
making mangy lions,
Medusa-ugly deep sea fish,
marsupial ducks,
trees as tall as mountains,
and great pink flightless birds

He made Homer blind,
made Beethoven half-deaf,
Mozart a lush,
Picasso depraved,
Newton and Epicteus mad as hatters,
made vixens beautiful,
trains late,
megalomaniacs charismatic,
and wise men usually
a little dull and absurd

In a bent fury
over an apple,
he made terrible diseases:
h.i.v., polio, the plague.
He hounded man with mosquitoes,
leeches, tarantulas,
and a capacity for technology
exceeding his tendency toward
wisdom, civilization, or good sense

Yeah, it's an odd house
he made for his likeness:
fertile, vast and wondrous,
twisted, anarchic, and brutish.
But it's what we have.
He's moved on
(drinking men are prone to travel)
leaving us this strange world
and our own strange constructions