A Prayer

Living near the river we were often the first 

to hear any news of Klara. When we got up

in the morning it had snowed and I shaved 

my head and applied bright red lipstick to 

my mouth. Living near the river we were 

often troubled by rats, and I said a prayer 

and solemnly smashed the bathroom mirror 

with my fists, striking one, two, three,

four, five until I wandered out into the snow trailing 

blood. Living near the industrial estate we were often 

troubled by men in their cars cruising for sex. I kept 

on walking and it seemed as I continued the blood 

became darker and the men in their cars kept circling 

and one said you fucking weirdo out of his car 

window but another had the radio on and was listening 

to the popular song that was in everyone’s dreams 

those days. So I joined in the chorus and lay down in a ditch and howled. 

Living near a butcher’s shop we’d hear them begin work

before it was light, hacking at carcasses so I turned 

on the radio and what should be playing but the popular 

song in everyone’s dreams then one of the rats scuttled up 

to Klara and began to show her it could dance. Immediately 

we joined a circus. Living near the railway line we became 

familiar with the sounds of different trains, with the lonely 

sounds trains made in the small hours. Then he raised the baseball 

bat and hit Steve as hard as he could. It was an intensely cold night, 

the stars blazing pinpricks, the half moon like it had been sawn 

that way by a magician. Steve tried to get to his feet 

so he hit Steve again, this time across the back, all the while cruising 

for sex and slowly my hands stopped bleeding 

and I left no further trail and we were lost in the forest. 

Klara said not to worry I speak the language 

of birds but as she said this a giant soldier marched past 

carrying a sack full of frantically wing beating, struggling

birds. Steve just lay there and when they’d finished 

hacking at carcasses one or two would go down the local cafe 

for breakfast and Sally walked barefoot 

down to the general shop for some milk and bread 

and seemed to be gone hours but that was in the summer 

and saying you fucking weirdo out of his car window 

by now another popular song was in everyone’s 

dreams and we shielded our eyes against the searchlights 

and the circus rat ran into a ditch and still I kept on 

walking, wandering, and I came to the river 

where the moon had drowned itself. So I sat on an oil drum 

or something of that sort and began to sing 

next era’s song. And Sally came back from the shop 

and stripped naked and stood at the window 

and though it was no longer summer, 

though it was no longer autumn with its golds and its russets 

and its dying plenitude, and though spring was something 

we could only imagine as an uncanny end to all our loves 

and not something out of a poem because 

“any noticeable reiteration of the same grammatical concept becomes an effective poetic device. Any unbiased, attentive, exhaustive, total description of the selection, distribution and interrelation of diverse morphological classes and syntactic constructions in a given form surprises the examiner himself by unexpected, striking symmetries and anti-symmetries, balanced structures, efficient accumulation of equivalent forms and salient contrasts,… by rigid restrictions in the repertory of morphological and syntactic constituents used in the poem, eliminations which… permit us to follow the masterly interplay of the actualised constituents” 

– though it was winter, and the sky 

was mottling over again with snow she stood there naked 

so long I thought I’d become a statue. Living near the river 

we were often the first to hear any news of Klara, 

but we moved away long ago and could be dead for all we know.

“Let us insist on the strikingness of these devices.” Yes



The text in quotes is by Roman Jakobson.