David Wojahn, 'Web Prayer for Milosz'

[duathir.livejournal.com]

Web Prayer for Milosz

From euphoria at the blossom's destruction
in time-lapse, save us. We quicken & hiss like serpents,
our tongues flick us forward. We are studies of peritonitis
at the U.S. Forensic Death Farm in Tennessee. From the stunned
half-smiles of the decomposed, we rise. A dwarf inflates
to a giant, bloated like a Macy's float. The corpse
is arranged in Holding Area 232a: the effects
of assault rifle fire have been digitally photographed
for the muse to download for this page, an aggregate of signs
that I have fashioned with her aid. Tell me
to what end, o master. Without you words are pure convention.
Show me where the soul clings on, the Ineffable Name.
The language of the old belief, has it perished?
Keystroke, rictus, click, contusion: the apparitions gather like breath.

by David Wojahn