There flows in my veins the most ancient of ardours:
not power, or love, nor yet worship of God;
the fight that each tiniest baby fights hard as
fought earliest man: “Understand!” Pry and prod
with unquenchable flame of the world-disregarders
for Truth! – be it complex, destructive or odd.
If this fire is from Heaven, then Heaven I’ve earned;
so write on my grave: “This stone too shall be turned.”
This teasingly paradoxical little poem was originally published in the Shot Glass Journal, a thrice-a-year journal of 20-30 American poems and an equal number of international ones. Why the name? Because this is a journal for short poems, none over 16 lines. Most of the material they publish is free verse, but they like to have a full range of styles in each issue… which is good news for formal poets.
Photo: “Atheist Campaign on Tube Train” by Loz Flowers is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Form in Formless Times 
Thanks for the reference to Shot Glass Journal. For what it’s worth, it doesn’t matter what the atheist “demands”.
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Of course it’s a flippant little poem, Frank. If he believed in the existence of heaven, he wouldn’t be an atheist, would he?
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