As you maye have known, Stan Lee has spent much of his life writing about superheroes. In this poem he writes about the greatest hero of all.
"God Woke"
A poem by Stan Lee
He stretched and yawned and looked around
Haunted by a thought unfound
A vagrant thought that would not die
He rose and scanned the endless sky
He probed the is
He traced the was
He sought the yet to be
And then he found the planet earth
The half remembered planet earth
Steeped in pain and tragedy
And all at once he knew
He saw the world he had wrought to suit His master plan
And then he saw changes brought by heedless hand of man
Man so frail so small
Yet lord of all
Striving thriving hustling bustling
Sowing growing ever going ever learning
Never knowing
Less than righteous
Less than just
And in the end condemned to dust
He heard the man sounds everywhere
The shots! The clangs!
The roars! The Bangs!
The clatter clamored guns and hammer
And then he found to his despair
The haunting hallow sound of prayer
A billion bodies ever bending
A billion voices never ending
Give me! Get me! Grant me! Let me!
Love me! Free me! Hear me! See me!
While he pondered watched and waited
Endlessly they supplicated
Chanting! Ranting! Moaning! Groaning! Sighing! Crying! Cheating! Lying!
But towards what goal
What grand directing this pious tide of genuflection
To please their Lord
To please their God
He raised his head and laughed
Laughed hard
At man the enigma calling for aide
Ever demanding ever afraid
Man the enigma bewailing his fate
Yet, plagued by inaction till ever too late
Paradoxical man so fearful of death
Yet, squandering life and lavishing breath
Wasting his hours
Diluting his days
Accomplishing nothing while he praise and he praise!
Hypocritical man pompous and preening
Mouthing his wrote just from the throat
Words without feeling
Sound without meaning
Such arrogance
Such gross conceit
To think oneself somehow elite
To demand each prayer be heard with care
While painfully vainfully all unaware
Once omnipotent infinite absolute Lord is bored
God frowned
How dare they believe that the way and the light
Can be constantly badgered from morning till night
By what senseless standard
By what senseless rule
Do they treat their Creator as if he’s their tool
While proclaiming his glory, do they think him a fool?
Who else but a fool with a cosmos to savor
Would be bound just to earth granting boon granting favor
Who else but a fool with a cosmos unfolding
Would linger with man ever praising and scolding
Who else but a fool with a cosmos to strain
Would conceive him an ant hill and like a prisoner stay in
Who else but a fool would create mortal men
And then be expected to tend them mend them cry for them die for them over and over and over again
God sighed
I gave them minds as I recall
It was all so long ago
I gave them minds that they might use to chose to think to know
For the hapless weak must needs be wise
If they would prove their worth
And then I gave them paradise
The fertile verdant earth
At first I found the plan was sound
And somewhat entertaining
But once begun the deed now done
My interest started waning
The seed thus sown the twig now grown
I left them there alone
Alone
Among the planets and the stars and the endless fathomless hall
Alone
Bathed by light and clothed by dark
A mist the vague and the vast and the small
Alone
Alone as I have ever been
As I shall ever be
Why do they not accept it
How else can they be free
Why do they not accept it
Why do they search…for me
Why?
When their own little lives are so barren and brief
When all of their pleasures are tarnished by grief
In the space of a heart-beat their present is past
They cling to each moment but no moment can last
When the end comes so quickly and they soon are forgot
Why do they search for that which is not
Like onto children lost in the night
They search for a God to guide them
Like onto children huddled in freight
They must have their God beside them
But what sort of children from cradle to grave
Would grant Him abidance yet make Him their slave
They have conjured a heaven and there he must stay
Ever responsive be it night be it day
He must love and forgive them and comply when they pray
Ever attentive never to stray
And like onto children in their childish zeal
They worship their dream thinking fantasy real
God pondered
He the be all the end all the will and the way
The power the glory the night and the day
The Word and the Law the fount and the plan
Lord God almighty was baffled by man
He was puzzled by the paradox
By the irony their in
If only he could show them
But where would he begin
How to make them understand
How to make them see
How to make them recognize their own insanity
They live for gain and they strive in vain to circumvent their death
But their gold and wealth untold won’t buy an extra breath
They bestow a claim and they shower fame on those who rise to power
But those who care who love and share are forgot within the hour
Their prone to fight
To use their might
For whatever flag they cherish
But those who cry, “To arms!” don’t die
Their young are sent to perish
Yes, all unsung they kill their young
Who fall and die and then they cry
But why
A different house of worship
A different color skin
A piece of land that’s coveted
And the drums of war begin
Only death can triumph
There’s no place left to hide
And still the mad men ply their trade
Claming God is on their side
Of all who live
Who crawl and creep
Who take and give
Who wake and sleep
Who run who stand
Who dock the land from shore to shore
Man only man none but man wages war
Only man eternally killing
Only man infernally willing
To concede himself grace
To bury his race
Only man earnestly praying to his God as he’s slaying
And piously saying as the battles increase
He does what he must for his motives are just
The mayhem the carnage the slaughter won’t cease
But no need to worry, God’s in his corner
He’s killing for peace
Man his greed his hate his crime his war
The Lord our God could bare no more
He looked his last at man so small
So lately risen so soon to fall
He looked his last and had to know
Who’s fault this anguish this mortal woe
Had man failed Maker
Or Maker man
Who was the planner and who’s the plan
He looked his last then turned aside
He knew the answer
That’s why…God cried
