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Psalm by Joshua St. Claire

to the Angel of Music: 
make a joyful noise 
on your tabrets and pipes

Fractal Father, we praise you for plastics


selah

plastic garden garland round the head

​


plastic pierced preserving veins
plastic settled on a heart (it beats!)
plastic boy in a plastic casket


selah


oh, Solution To The Mandlebrot Equation 
oh, Emanation Of The Eminent Exhale
oh, Infinite Regress Of The Homunculus
oh, Tessellation Of The Reptile
oh, Brazen Bullfrog
oh, Recursive Curse

   
selah

​

oh, how much more can we fit in the space between the two of us
 

to the Angel of Music 
spin Morrissey’s 

“Everyday is Like Sunday”
 


Loving Lord Of The Atom Bomb
Rearer-Raiser Of Raven Rock


selah 

 

top us with tungsten-tined tritium tiaras
strengthen us with strontium
indole us with iodine
cover us with cobalt
our bones shall be clean 
and we can rest at last


to Cherub Prime 
softly whisper:
“Two-Headed Boy, Part 2”

 

Gargantuan God
Giver Of Ginkgoes
bless us with bamboo

   
selah

 

we shall wait a time times and half a time
but the strange spring of the ginkgo blossom shall not come
we shall wait a time times and half a time
but the bamboo’s bloom is a sod

   
selah

 

we shall wait— 
we will find what stopped
there will be time—
to find what stopped for us


selah

ah—
the temple-echoes filling bare-nectaries
the void-vibrations filling ambrosia-gongs
the isolation-ichor filling chamber-atria
                they always look bigger from inside the outside

 

Angel of Music, rest

 

Maker Of Mayflies    
             Giver Of Mouths That Cannot Eat
Maker Of Cicadas    
              Giver of Mouths That Cannot Sing


Selah

 

these bead-decades we have counted over
these mystery-agonies we have counted over
the heartbeats we are still counting over


Selah

 

I said let there be this ekphrasis on Your cosmic dance

​

You saw it
was it good?

Amen.
 

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Joshua St. Claire is an accountant who works as a financial executive for a large non-profit in rural Pennsylvania, USA. His poetry has been published in The Inflectionist Review, The Delmarva Review, ubu., and The Ghost City Review, among others. He is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. His work was included in the 2022 Dwarf Stars Anthology, and he is the winner of the 2022 Gerald Brady Memorial Senryu Award.

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