If I ever mutter something magnificent
Something sarcastic and succinct enough to scar
and forever vanquish my vanity
It'll be born of mad mumblings in a bar
of precious snippets of a sinner’s sanity
It'll come far removed from fields in fall
Millions of miles removed from Mars
and the cliches in the comets and their tails
It'll come from something strange,
from lobotomy scars
and haunted county jails
It'll come, whatever beast it may be,
an omen of hell or heaven,
from Waco in '93
from Rwanda, from 9/11
It'll come, as all great things begin,
from something sick and rotten
Something I heard
on Ghost Tape Number 10
Something furious and forgotten
A faceless Jane Doe,
estimated height: five-feet-two,
discovered in summer '69
It'll come from Death Row
It'll come from Swine Flu
It'll come from me
but it won’t be mine.
from the book Balladmonger: More Bad Poems & Prose
