Doomhead, Image by Rupert M. Loydell
from
THE RETURN OF DOOM-HEADED THREE
Daniel
Y Harris & Rupert M Loydell
I
wasn’t looking for you but the Colonel was,
along
with self-promoted General Puce,
Dame
Blowfish with the Magpie twins
and
an entourage of nurses and musicians.
I
thought I saw Doom Headed Three
but
it was only some DIY wannabees
dressed
in an approximation of their
favourite
stars. If I was you, I’d hide;
the
Colonel wasn’t in a good mood
and
seemed to have a warrant.
Shoot to Kill, was printed at the
top,
do not try to converse or reason
with
printed
just beneath. The twins
were
looking forward to rescuing
jewels
and trinkets from your corpse,
Nurse
Ratchet to the embalming.
I
have booked a small pyramid
out
on the ice for your remains,
beyond
the reach of satellites
or
reliquary hunters. Happy bliss,
and
no encores to endure,
no
imaginary careers or contracts
to
fulfil. We might even get you
a
sainthood for your pains
or
at least a mention in the pages
of
the village magazine. Love dies
and
the last days are an oblivion.
Spinoff
and Distrust: do the honours.
•
Demiurges
rise from graves chanting “the nephilim suck the pores”,
with
man-eating leaches in tow. Rotted bones jerk in corpse-soaked
ponds.
Fires burn in the distance with shipwrecks. Skin-boiled imps
haul
wagons full of skulls with death knell and starving dogs. Traps
decorated
with crosses are manned by legions of the undead. King
Dead
rides a mangy horse and carries a scythe. He plays the hurdy
gurdy
in a punk band called Doom Headed Three.
•
Broken
glass, broken minds,
reflected
in the greenhouse
of
a lost utopian garden.
Shadows
come to stay
and
there are plants
which
have outgrown
their
welcome, as well
as
trees in skinny rows
that
produce no fruit
for
harvest. Trowels
and
truggs, long dark
dresses
and faint voices,
overgrown
imaginations
and
cemetery lawns,
a
brambled playground
where
curious twins,
echo
sisters, push
through
dirty panes
into
an imaginary past.
People
in glass houses;
panoptical
priestess.
•
I
may be dead during our next repartee,
spent
by a spate of repetitions,
repeating this one to the forensic
specialist
who
only knows futility and cynicism—just another dead guy
in
his mid-fifties. We get these types twice a week.
What’s this about our efforts to decrease
the
surplus population? That’s
me, Uncle Abner.
You’re
only worth what you earn. What’s this about urns?
Yes,
I was shopping for an original George Hepplewhite,
but
would settle for a cheap coffee-grinder. For ashes?
It
is your plan to grind your ashes for a hot beverage?
It
is Uncle Abner. It is. Nothing soothes a broken man
like
a Mayan Funerary Urn Latte with extra foam.
I like mine with a dash of swan’s
neck pediment.
Cremation
is so final, isn’t there an intermediary step?
An
ode of postponement, or perhaps a dirge
of
scheduled-you-on-the-wrong-day. Say,
how
about valet at the masquerade ball. No sir,
Uncle
Abner, it’s time. You see, things run their course.
You mean people run their course.
Yes. Entropy
melds
its scintilla, thinning specks,
skinning its pickled
pork
bellies to slices of spicy meat. What chance could a figura
etymologica have in an age of
instant disposability?
•
