Barbarian’s Prayer

Heaven holds me, yet my heart storms like Jupiter.
I am a projectile scream, seizing higher and higher
altitudes and soon to score the face of the moon.

For a mammoth’s age, I chugged the wine
that spells men to lust and revenge. I charged
crocodiles and barked at lions. My talons tattooed
the shoulders of mountains. My sword bled
the planet’s stone citadels down to necropolises.

Now, I nap like a spent jezebel—numb
from the perfume of this wisteria world. I batter
heaven’s gates, begging for ignoble Earth.

Somewhere below I smell the siege engines.
I hear the warlock cackle & the fool’s carol.
Grant me one more hour in that agony, and
from a sprig of moss I will form a mortal point.

***

John Dos Passos Coggin is a writer based in Alexandria, Virginia. His poetry has appeared in Pangyrus, Cathexis Northwest Press, and The Blue Mountain Review. His nonfiction has appeared in The American Scholar, The Baltimore Sun, and The Tampa Bay Times. He also co-manages the John Dos Passos literary estate and serves on the advisory board of the John Dos Passos Society.