How To Do The End Of The World Cha Cha

 

Convinced of the End Times, Neighbor Jim

MacGyvers up a companion from old soup cans,

paint brushes, stereo wire and car parts,

A sort of Bride of Frankenstein to ease Armageddon 

with chicken pot pies and a surprisingly

avid libido.

One day she comes across the common alley

for a woman-to-woman, making certain things clear about

Neighbor Jim, my skank ass, and Fist City.

Watching her walk away, dragging her dinosaur tail on the lawn,

I envy her those spinal plates, round-so-round

vulcanized boobs, and blowy porn-model Medusa hair.

I'm saying she's dishy, in a home appliance kind of way.

There is a tender grace to the way she lights the candles with her tongue

as she and Neighbor Jim while away the evenings

Watching This Old House on the generator-powered tv,

waiting on the six trumpets of Revelation as if they were the Tijuana Brass 

doing a hotel gig on the last day of a bang-up Cancun vaykay.

________

for Word Garden Word List #12 (Richard Brautigan)

Mulier Loquitur Mortuis

Winter is coming,
like ice jammed into an envelope, 
mailed sharp to the heart of your flabby complacency.

Oh, I'm sorry, dear.
I know how you hate talk of the slaughter
which necessarily precedes your roast of beef on its platter.

Still,
something just hit the window
hard enough to dent the lead and crack the old glass.

Rev'rend on his black horse rode,
passage marked with one red rose;
He found Esther, Esther cried,
one red rose by the waterside.

Get out of bed.
It's time we talked.
Don't you find me appealing anymore, with red in my hair?

The ostler had a fine shovel,
and my last thought was of nothing in particular.
Now learn, at my insistence, the value of doing a job yourself.

You look gray,
as if all your blood had turned to smoke.
Listen to you sputtering, ridiculous, invoking your cotton-eared god.

Rev'rend on your errand rode.
Esther cried and Esther chose.
Gospel came surprisingly
in bloom and thorn blood-picked by me.
_______

for grapeling's word list at Real Toads. I used "smoke", "winter" and "slaughter".