Mysterons

Rot und Grün - Red and Green 50 x 20 cm acryl/collage by Karin Goeppert

SUPERNATURAL

In order to stay in the good graces

of God you go to incredible lengths

of servitude and inconvenience

even transporting the Sunday school 

brats in that dilapidated station wagon 

your atheistic step father left you in his will  

as post-mortem revenge, as if knowing what   

sort of missionary use you’d put it to,

six little heathens practicing  

a version of human sacrifice in the back seat.

Now if this doesn’t get you a first class ticket

to heaven, there’s nothing left to do but pray  

while cicadas, inspired from On High, cackle in the wind.

If there was such a thing as ghosts they’d play poker on the roof,

smoke our stash, tap into our booze supply, grind

chips and dip into the carpet. One of them of course

would have to be addicted to snuff, leave empty coke cans

everywhere full of brown spit. He would be the one who

left the blue-grass red-neck records out of their sleeves

and all over the floor. Ghosts don’t haunt

                                                      so much as plague. And what’s

worse: not even God can kill them: they’re already dead.

Witches still exist. Today you can see them sashaying

atop perilous designer heels, not brooms, long clean hair shining

on the pallid beaches of Maui and Mykonos  

and not only do the waves gasp and froth, the wind breathe

in fits and starts. Trust me, bro, not only the waves or the wind.

But the only man who has their ear whispers

wicked things therein, the right spells, a promise of tickets

as he gently squeezes your nipples, darling,

to the coolest award shows in town( he looks a little

like Jack Nicholson, circa The Witches of Eastwick,

the same shit-eating grin, the dark glasses), which is all we’re interested in.

That, and how high our shoes can get, in every shade of

witchy pastel, every ice-creamy warlocky hue. The world looks on, spellbound.

Mysterons by Portishead