“When were you born?”

received 27 likes on Facebook
even before Jesus could answer,
“After Mary conceived a diety.”

Shiva didn’t like my question
she claimed it disrespectful
coming from such a minor god as me
but like all others liked
the response from Jesus.

Mary, who friended Jesus
could, of course, not see my question
nor his response.
Besides, Mary’s sense of time
and birth is so pedestrian
she could never conceive our conception.

Just the other day
Zeus and Athena updated their status
from dormant to research.
Digitalizing left old timelines
renewable pursuable –
Now we see comments
and supplications
of long deceased believers.

It seemed all liked the change
but then Mephistopheles raged,
“Dormant doesn’t exist – dead is dead!”
to which Jahweh said,
“You old devil, what’s wrong with your head?
Only Nietzsche is dead.”
Which was liked by all
and shared by many.

But the devil gets last likes
when he shares human fights
over whose god can deliver peace
or help Maggie pay her lease,
or rescue Gladis pleading Jahweh
to hide her last affair with Jay
or answer any two-bit call
scrawled on paper,
stuck in a wall.
He oft comments
what we know,
“We’re impotent
and so can do nothing.”

Happily we gods are democratic:
all of us big and small
share timelines and find
that we don’t mind
entreaties of man
begging us to do what they can
not
and praising us no matter what –

as if they forgot
who created whom.

Joe Oppenheimer taught mathematical social sciences at the University of Maryland.  He retired to write and his plays, stories, and poems have been published in numerous literary reviews.  He focuses on loss, injustice, forgiveness, and the foibles of life.  His self-published volumes are available on Amazon.  He has run writers' workshops at a homeless shelter and a VA hospital. Much of his work is available on his website  https://joeaoppenheimer.wixsite.com/my-site.