Where to are you bound
if not in the ground?
The sky is the limit, they say.
You fly to a peak
and stay for a week,
then rise into heaven one day.
The dirt in the hole
will replace the soul,
the quiet still sticky with prayer.
The insects and snakes
will hold their own wakes.
You’ll rest in eternal nightmare.
Soon flowers will grow
in row upon row.
Your stone will host lichen and mold.
It’s no party town
when you’re six feet down.
There is no cure for growing old.
There is no place left
for an angry vulture.
They’re just not wanted
in our current culture.
No one appreciates
their whole routine of
flying in to pick a body clean.
They and their buzzard pals
must eat at night
and bitch about how
things now just aren’t right.
Unmeating dead men’s bones
is not so scary.
It makes them
that much easier to bury.
The man with needles
had them all in stitches.
His specialty was sewing
funny britches.
Sometimes you’d find
sewn on the cuff
a collar button or ear muff.
Some pants might sport
inverted pockets,
or belt loops
that looked like rockets.
One might find louvres
in the knees,
the better to enjoy the breeze.
A tailor this bizarre,
some said, might have
a loose thread in his head.
No one uses fuses any more.
You cannot find them in a hardware store.
So if you own a house with ancient wiring,
you’d better pray your fuses aren’t expiring.
You’ll need to get your fuse box overhauled,
says every electrician that I’ve called.
They say, "You’ve still got fuses and not switches?"
And then dissolve right on the phone in stitches.
I wish that I could shock away their smirking,
if only my electric was still working.
Some say a man who plays gin rummy
must be bored or else a dummy.
What a waste of time and mind
trying to find three of a kind.
Yes, but there’s the same suit run.
Oh, they smirk, that sounds like fun.
Those that don’t play find it shocking,
sitting, shuffling, all night knocking.
Finally, someone yells out "Gin!"
Then it all begins again.
Real men fix cars, work in yards.
Desperados fall to cards.
Life must be a real train wreck
if one’s heart lies in the deck.
Players, though, say that’s not true,
citing reasons, fifty-two.
Kings and Queens sit at their table.
Top that, Jack, if you are able.
If it was God invented mucus for our sinus cavities,
He’d be the damned George Lucas of headspace depravities.
Nasal canals fill up with liquid that turns into rock,
then melts again and squirms like squid and dribbles down one’s frock.
Thank doctors for their decongestants, drying up face tunnels.
Without them we’d be like contestants, racing to fill funnels.
If God invented sinus drip, it had to be a crock.
No maker would be quite so flip lest He owned Kleenex stock.