The Immolation of the Martyr Jan Palach and His Subsequent Journey to His Namesake Asteroid, 1969

He doused his head, his limbs,
his Czech face, and
ignited the wet body,
synthetic bloc-fabrics
melting and cooking
with the meat
of his angry torso,
emitting acrid fumes,
stinging the nostrils, the throats
of the planet—
the sad smoke
causing the tearing of
a million eyes, a
tearing of a million meters
of inorganic fibers
on it way into the sky,
the choking remains
of the boy
traveling upward into the
heavens, outward into space,
searching for a new home,
a new ground on which
to rest its mean, its free,
its weary particles.