Prayer

any one  could be the one  the sudden
stun  you’d waited for
              arrest again
a rest against the elements
                anyone’s
unpaginated press
         persephone personifies  the dying into
 dynasty

       how does he hear  this song
among the words   song strung through   the echoing
words   how does he pick a peck   and execute
the singing in his heart  the fire there   a quiet threat
to gods gathered    in that odd margin

then they will differ  (& whisper)  if as they do
syllables of willow branch

                   tristesse tristesse
my brothers bless    sold away  sold away
sweet soul  toil by day   sold away  sold away

“so to tell and not to sing it“    the singing     in the telling
syllable by syllable   held the echoing way       toil by day
sweet soul    doing as you are told   sold away

tristeza bless my brother’s head
                     blues implode
hold him holy    bless my brother   let him live

we think   in fact  we think we hear   so long so long
the silence couldn’t last  long lost lyric  his
body torn apart    tristeza    bless my brother’s head

the friends of friends   listen at the margins   ink well
speak easy   please the ones    one aims to please
that way danger lies?   a fib   a fibrillation
singing for its own sake    shook in spasm    the arrhythmia
of fragmented shudder stutter quick synapse torn orpheus
scattered  no more than a postmodern    did you say
post mortem   period piece  in the authentic rhetoric
the way  this instant it sposed to be
                    & i digress
in saying so

         then again tristesse  you settle
too insistently   about my brother’s head  bless
the one who risks  adventuring your cause
                       he
sings it  & he writes it  & he draws it

draws out the thread given to him  threat  threatens
frets  fingers work the frets  plays out the agony
plain song  hydroplaning danger   the rest of us stand
ready to explain

            spell chant   the god name
a simple exhalation    yah weh    yah weh
a gust of wind  a single breath  a sacred expiration

no end to what begins
             tristeza
                     let him live