MY EXECUTION

 

 

Da DaDa Da

trumpeted from trumpeting trumpets

making happy trumpeting people and happy circus music.

It was 1912 in River City, Iowa.

 

I was hanging by a rope tied around my waist.

My hands bound, mouth gagged with a bloody Barney rag.

The town librarian read from the Bible.

 

In this sweet town, I awaited my execution by boiling,

in the bubbling black cauldron directly below me.

 

The gentlemen wore seersucker suits and straw hats.

The lovely, sweet ladies wore red bonnets and

the darling children read Captain Billy's Whiz Bang.

 

There was no reason, no crime, just women.

 

The insane executioner spoke insane words

and walked around insanely in a grassy field

in a nearby insane park, waiting to be called to kill.

Gas pipes ran in rectangles in his brain.

 

Summer Symphony pillboxes and parasols

flung across the shoulders of lovely women.

Water ran in squares across the desk of the town clerk.

 

The learned schoolmaster stood at the podium

condemning me and praising my execution.

His beard was filled with red blinking Christmas lights.

He spoke of …

 

The women waved yellow handkerchiefs as

the fat mayor walked by, cigar in hand.

Their bodies waved as he waved by.

 

He stood beside my suspended body;

I could hear the cheers go up

as they slowly lowered me in.

 

                                --Published in Dream Fantasy International