an ordinary tongue
grown dry and coarse
within the unfixed elements
of words, and a world
once believed to be magical
have lost their own power,
which was only faith
and the energies of the body
commit to endure

perverance, and the 
raggedy bands, recomposing
their song for passions 
into immoral verses
and heartffelt words
by breath and sound,
found dangling
at the end of a rope
for sins which we had
yet to commit, 
and the angry alchemies
of purging fires

scrawled like grafitti
in an open field
are the brave carnival rides,
suffering from too much
oxygen
and never enough water--
powerless to 
momentum and gravity
as Americana-land
ticked, trickling down
into the earth

knees bent to every rising sun
and meandering foil, pledged
and panache stricken
are the languages softened
by ecstatic caress--
contained within
every imaginary line
is the soul suffering
by parchments and 
reproaches

wherein the soldier-eye closes,
certain that the campaign
has been misspent
upon so much ridiculous candor,
and the fury of his country
perpetually turning in upon itself--
fervoristic fevers
and the mechanical clandestiny
have made it all seem obsolete

the lives that were taken
and those that were saved
gathered by the river's edge
for a tent revival--
the sins of what went wrong
weighted against the fragile
monuments, of recycled
glass shattering
and the plastic bones
of how it will all be perceived
in the future-mind
and the gods
of the tomorrow's child

eyes brightly, perpetually
blazing toward that new world,
and its own ego
closed within the shrinking chambers
of identity and hope,
unraveling the threads
of history, realigning its
teeth and combing over the wig
into a beautiful beast

fluttering amidst the flames
the misbegotten hordes falling
into a winnowing voice--
screaming hallelujah...

hallelujah,
hallelujah,
hallelujah.