Michael Hakim Week 1 - "Prayer For the Mutilated World" by Sam Sax

      “Prayer for the Mutilated World” by Sam Sax takes the reader on a journey into a future where all of the superficialities of today’s society are non-existent. Throughout the poem, Sax gives many specific examples of this future, such as highways being taken over by forests, phone lines doing nothing, and “after the water taps gasp out their final blessing.” To many, including Sax himself, these frightening thoughts are too much to handle; he “dare[s] not consider” what would happen in this hypothetical future. However, according to Sax, we shouldn’t even be thinking about this in the first place and enjoy every moment instead.

     A few things in this poem really stood out to me - the most notable one to me, however, is how Sax calls today’s world a “last extinction.” Thinking about today’s society as being on the brink of extinction is a crazy thought, but one that may, sadly, be true. However, we can only control what we can control, and the fact that we are alive is enough to be grateful about.

     I love this poem, as it really put everything into perspective for me. If you think about it, most of the things that happen in today’s world are meaningless, and this poem offers a unique insight into a very complicated, yet relevant issue. I really enjoyed the overall style of this poem, and I felt the emotion of every line while I was reading. It is obvious that this is a topic that Sax is passionate about, and I feel that I can relate to him a lot as a person because I think similarly to him.

     I look forward to reading more of Sax’s work in the future.

POEM: 

what will be left after the last fidget

spinner’s spun its last spin

after the billboards accrue their thick

layer of grit masking advertisements

for teeth paste & tanqueray gin

after the highways are overtaken

by invasive forests

after the ministers give up their gods

& the rabbis their congregations

for drink

after new men rise to lead us sheep

toward our shearing, to make bed

sheets from our hair

after the high towers have no airplanes

to warn away & instead blink purely

toward heaven like children

with one red eye

after phone lines do nothing

but cut the sky into sheet music

& our phones are just expensive

bricks of metal & glass

after our cloud of photographs collapses

& all memories retreat back

into their privatized skulls

after the water taps gasp out their final

blessing

what then?

when even the local militias run

out of ammunitions

when the blast radii have been

chalked & the missiles do all they were

built to

when us jews have given up our state

for that much older country of walking

& then that even older religion of dirt

when all have succumbed to illness

inside the church of our gutted pharmacies

when the seas eat their cities

when the ground splits like a dress

when the trash continent in the mid-atlantic

at last opens its mouth to spit

what will be left after we’ve left

i dare not consider it

instead dance with me a moment

late in this last extinction

that you are reading this

must be enough