Image courtesy of Blinoffilya, Wikipedia Commons
those who die in their infancy
are not assumed into heaven
they join the ranks
of decommissioned public sculptures
in some uncanny valley
alongside the bad Oldenberg
clones and Kubrickian slabs
war heroes who were anything but
pick at their patina’s
Rorschach blots
as if peeling a sunburn
somehow the leprosy
of pigeon droppings doesn’t
seem to cause them
any torment
immortality is granted
not as a reward
but by default
it offers much less resistance
than judging who should suffer
the trauma of logged responses
the trauma of transcendence
the trauma of vigils
the trauma of barricade tape
the trauma of trail and error’s
white rats and costume beards
the trauma of being reborn
what form will
these bureaucratic demiurges pull
from the cache of confiscated toys
they call infinity
the wailing and weeping
are neverending
all these souls frozen
in an ecumenical automatism
an electrified field awaits
its stimulation underneath
this cheap Elysium’s Astroturf
Joe Milazzo is the author of the novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie, two volumes of poetry—The Habiliments and Of All Places In This Place Of All Places—and several chapbooks (most recently, homeopathy for the singularity). His writings have appeared in Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Prelude, Tammy, Yalobusha Review, and elsewhere. He is an Associate Editor for Southwest Review and the Founder/Editor-In-Chief of Surveyor Books. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is http://www.joe-milazzo.com.
JMWW 