"If Horses Have Gods" by Christopher Fox Graham

"If Horses Have Gods"

by Christopher Fox Graham

Oct. 13, 2025

Close your eyes
and imagine your death
not midnight
or silence
but a ceasing

no afterlife or echo

nothing beyond your last moment

eternal dark is too terrifying to accept
so we imagine something beyond
the Fields of Auru, 

the Elysian Plain, 

the halls of Valhalla

a heavenly kingdom

so like this place
that they could not possibly be real

we impose order on the chaos
sanity on an unforgiving world
suspended in a sunbeam
in the distant arm of galaxy
of 400 billion silent stars
utterly indifferent to our noise

with no one to listen,
we manufactured our own
someone who understands
as we would understand

our first fiction was filmmaking
projecting humanity into the heavens

if horses have gods,
they look like horses

our gods are upright apes

our ancestors, who art in history,
hallowed be your names;
Mitochondrial Eve
and Y-chromosomal Adam
deliver us from the evil
we visit on each other
pass down wisdom through time
how to hunt, to forage, to build,
to bear children and bury our dead
remembering those before
in hopes we too would not be forgotten

we deified a tribal protector,
the embodiment of our people
then then city-state namesake
the hero of myth
immense and immortal
but doomed to our same follies

finally the protagonists of books
passing down the rules and morals
so this loose civilization 

doesn’t fall apart:

don’t covet your brother

don’t eat the bad shellfish

don’t murder your neighbor

don’t rebel against the king

if poor, don’t steal

if rich, don’t be greedy

if enslaved, don’t rebel

don't upset the status quo

don't fight the system

don't rebel,

don't rebel

or else the universe will kill you

before it kills you 

anyway

say these things,

do these things

at the appointed time

to mark you "loyal" to the order

darwinian evolution on a grand scale
to keep stability
so we don’t extinct ourselves

individually, though, we are islands
so we build monuments
craft art
and tell stories
of what it means to be us
and what it means to be me
and not you
so you might understand me
remember me when I am gone
and maybe, become a better you

12,000 generations lived and died
to bring you and us to this moment
here, now
a billion decisions
made by a million dead grandparents
who bred and survive
to set this stage
every choice you made
from first heart thump in your mother
to opening that door
manufactured this moment
brought you here tonight

13 billion years sacrificed themselves to time
for these 180 seconds

but time is short
language inefficient
so we stretch and pull
words into the best order
to best paint wisdom worth remembering

a million different tongues wiped out
before cities, parchment or ink
could preserve them
we only speak a thousand
but not one ever lacked poetry

we condense wisdom into breath
articulation into art
make it dance like a tornado across your skin
tango passion into your subconscious
salsa syncopated staccato stanzas
into your spine
hip-hop breaking beats into bones

the universe was born without purpose
blind to every life it snuffed out
since the Earth made this orbit our home

but we will make these three minutes

the reason the Big Bang

banged into existence

our stories, our sins and salvations

isn’t wordplay

this isn't supposed to pretty or safe or kind

this is raw humanity unfiltered, uncut

poured into shot glasses of time

this is divinity manifest

this is something sacred

this stage is Holy Ground

when a poet speaks on this mic,

death has no dominion

there is no god but mankind,

and you are its prophet,

peace be upon you

but “prophet” is just “poet”
with too many letters
so poets, edit your work
our ancestors deserve the effort

when a good poem lands
let it wash over you
let the words settle in your psyche
let electricity tingle your backbone
what you feel

is not any faraway god
but connection across this space
across time to all the poets
who have told their stories
at poetry slams, open mics,
soapboxes, pulpits, altars
back to caves and campfires
when the human race
was no bigger than this room
know you’re not alone

spit your story on this mic
why you are here now
not your chair, but your skin

the only blasphemy here 

is silence

you have a story to tell
we want to know you
become worth remembering