A X-mas Thank You Note
(Shouted Through Mud)

Death is where... your butt stinks!... Even twice as bad as mine... But nowhere near as bad as my poetry. You lay rotting in the grave, devoured by worms, the stench of your decay trapped in a cement box... while I dance on top, trippin' on acid, sweaty, naked, jerkin' off, and howlin' at the moon!
... Oh,... sorry Grandma.

I bet you never had visions like I do. The giant yellow-eyed spiders, the little men who visit you in the night, the pack of wild dogs raiding the kitchen, the babies that dance on the ceiling of your alcohol withdrawal delirious tremors -- They're all nothing!!!

I've seen leafless, naked trees screwing themselves in the fall wind as they dance on the ceiling of God, their sharp ravenous claws ripping the sky to shreds, unveiling hidden new worlds for me to get lost in, shimmering, shaking their wooden booties, nailed to a cross made out of themselves... and dancing, just as I am now doing a jig on the roof of your concrete tomb.

Come up and dance with me, Grandma. Let me be your tree. Don't be such an old stick in the mud. Dig your way out. Let's party!!

I've got a bottle of Ol' Weller's 100 proof for you. Have a drink. Yesssss, that's it! That's the old girl I remember. Many were the glorious drunken Christmas eve we spent by the fireplace. And on our last one together you still swore that Santa was real.

Mother's always been mad; I see that now. Sister went mad in ninety-two. Straight-jacket asylum in Iowa. Now it's my turn. I hear sleigh bells overhead. "Ho, ho, ho! Merrrry X-mas!!" I have seen more universes collapse onto themselves than even you have imbibed molecules of ethanol. Insanity is the birthright of our family. Thank you for your gift, Grandma. I've put it to good use... I'm writing poetry!