G'kar poem, set after Season 4 sometime. Feedback welcome, please don't archive without permission.

REFLECTIONS: AN EULOGY FOR A GOD

We are the voice of the universe.

You are silent.
A cipher.
Or perhaps I am. Perhaps it is my own life that has been smothered.
Perhaps I am the one who is empty.

I can't judge anymore.

They would have bound me to a throne room,
Crafted a god from my visage. A god!
As one, they turn to me in the guise of
A vicious, gloating child, dancing around the corpse of a tyrant
Whilst vultures circle overhead and wait to feast.

We are the voice of the universe, and they are silent.
Empty vessels, devoid of thought or feeling.
It is laughable that they should have ever thought me capable of that…
Laughable, yet a deep wound, stabbing into my heart.
After everything I have said, everything I have tried to teach them…
Deaf, blind, mute, they know nothing.

What was it all for, I wonder.
Why did I do it all?
Not for myself.
Not for those worthy.
But who is to judge worth? Who is to say who lives and who dies?
Who is to play god?

I have no calling for the role of Messiah.
Power – fame – fortune – they hold no appeal for me.
What power costs, and what it grants –
Those are never equal. And when the payment strips your soul
What reward can restore it?

I refused the sceptre.
And lo,
I threw away the crown.
I passed the role of martyr to my foe.

Was it fate, perhaps?
Fate, for my erstwhile victim to become once again an oppressor?
Certainly there is irony there.
Certainly the universe is laughing quietly somewhere, out of earshot of mortal men.
Certainly gloating over the fate it has planned for us both.

You are my murderer,
And yet my victim.
My greatest enemy

And my closest confidante.

Five chances to escape the fire… how many have passed, my friend?
How many have you given away?
How many surrendered on the altar of power?
How many nights have conquered the day?

Breaking patterns; shattering the universe.
I have surrendered to fate, at last;
Scattered the ashes, put out the fires;
And finally, tried to forget the past.

And there is one more thing to say, I feel.
One more sacrifice to make
One more confession to offer
Before one more life I take.

We are the voice of the universe…

A merciful voice… always a merciful voice…

I want to forgive you, Emperor Mollari.
And still…
I lay awake and wonder; in all the heavens,
Is there one soul that can forgive… me?

fin