JP Reese

Oh, Hell

First you die in August or some other month
or someone kills you in Detroit, the Galapagos,
your driveway, your dreams, or you drown. But
you don't rack up points for how it happens.
Or when. Or why. Even if you suffered.
No points. No one cares. No donut. 

Then you see this woman. Funky red horns
look phallically familiar--Some kind of tail.
She waves a flowered bow tie.
A searchlight extends from her forehead.
A can of spray paint clutched between her thighs,
she points a jeweled fingernail at the wall.
You stroll, read tags from the Koran, Tora! Tora! Tora!
Mein Kampf, Lassie, The Gnostic Gospels and
Tender Buttons in Day-Glo orange and pink.
There is a tunnel.  A sign reads,
"Gemillut Chassidim, Do Not Go This Way,"
so you don't. 

A bald Hindu lawyer wearing Pampers
imprinted with wireless spectacles
spreads his arms to block a smoked glass door
behind which you glimpse a party going on.
He smiles. His mouth swallows his head.
You eye the submarines, want to crawl inside,
become one with shredded lettuce, mayo, Swiss cheese.
No nukes here, no triage, no wounded to nurse, or shoot. 
You lick your finger, taste day-old codfish.

A stroll to the gift shop bends each minute
like a Dali watch as you wait to get this trip straight
with the ticket machine. There are pens
with red laser lights, Betty Crocker Devil's Food
cake mix, pickled jalapenos, golden nipple rings
and Ball jars filled with Ass-Kickin' Chili.
Bob Marley stands too close to you,
a red-eared slider perches like a yarmulke on his head. 
He speaks through lips dangling a massive spliff,
“Do not lose your head, you are not really here.”

Spike Lee, caped like Zorro, struts over the threshold,
his left arm draped around Lina Wertmuller.
Lina feeds a dog-eared copy of Swept Away
By An Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August 
into his mouth. She tugs Spike's mustache 
because Giancarlo Gianini is not here to make her laugh.
She has strung blue eyes and rabbit's feet
from a chain around her neck

Spike hands you these things--
A metal pail with sides that rainbow
like trout flanks under water, overflowing
with stone crabs from Joe's and spiked hands,
a black leather Laker's cap,
and a rather curt note -- from God.
The postscript scrawled across the bottom
in number two pencil reads,
“Must have missed your connection, dude. 
Have a nice stay.”

JP Reese has work published or forthcoming in protestpoems.org: Writing for Human Rights, Thunderclap, Connotation Press, The Smoking Poet, Silkworms Ink, The Pinch, Forces, Eclectic Flash, Used Furniture Review, Blue Fifth Review, Gloom Cupboard, Corium Magazine.  Reese is a poetry editor for this -- a literary webzine, and she also teaches English at a small college in Texas.