Ralph Monday- Three Poems

Apocalypse Everyday

I was watching the History channel about

all the ways that the apocalypse could

happen, from another ice age to the sun

going red giant billions of years hence

and fry the earth like a bad sunburn.

Or a Buddhist fire, Aztec darkness, the great

wolf Ragnarok.

All the ways that the world could end now

that the Mayan termination never put in the

needle.

I got to thinking and wondered if all the TV

jockeys thought that the world ends everyday

for somebody. People die and that’s it. The

apocalypse now.

That and no more commercials.

Making Love to Julie Newmar

I make love to Julie Newmar every

night, on Google, Pinterest, YouTube.

She is a lion, you know, Leo the

leonine goddess, the reason why her

nature came out as catwoman.

She appreciates my love, at 81 there

is not much time left to slink around

in her tight black catsuit where with

or without the costume, dim witted

Batman was no match for her purrfect

genius.

As a lithe dancer was truly her search

for meaning, moving like summer

rain, like autumn grasses waving in

wind—

that living life, operational with the

grace of an ice skater, it was here

that she swayed for the avatars:

Buddha, Krishna, Jesus as he

kissed Mary Magdalene, the

Iroquois shaman drumming on animal

skin with petrified antlers dug from

the detritus of a melted glacier—

here that she moved through time and

space peering through the curtains

looking for the same dance as all do. 

She knows she needs my love, I

her long distance screen paramour,

she loves me back without knowing

me. I understand her, how she has

changed as she aged. I know her

haunted eyes that stare into a staring

back darkness, and so we love without

touching, ghost lovers who sense that

love's intuition is the only stay we have.

Let Us Sing Hymns to Degeneracy

Did the Romans become degenerate as a

model for now, or was it the gods

drinking,       playing old jokes like a

washboard musician at a country

Hoedown?

The Puritans built fires to their own

cult, the Marquis de Sade honed skills

as a poker game         played out of a black

duffle bag.

Caligula dances in perfect tune for

American rappers tattooing out

rhythm in alley               graffiti about all

the women    as whores,    kill the cops,

slap the bitch          around, feed her the

fruit she ate a long time ago.

Models all or none

needed

teaching enough in all the

past annuals, the lead smiles

golden blooms turned iron to

where we now    worship degeneracy

Topsy turvy circus whirlwind

these times when hymns fly out as

throated        savagery to the new

gods of pop and celebrity candy

pulled from the                 offering plate to

buy the shiny new church

sign.

In praise of degeneracy is the

national anthem,         reason swept

away to the land of     Oz,      no

way to again    walk    Kansas

wheat            fields.

Ralph Monday is Associate Professor of English at Roane State Community College in Harriman, TN., and published in over 50 journals. A chapbook, All American Girl and Other Poems, was published in July 2014. A book Lost Houses and American Renditions is scheduled for publication, May 2015 by Aldrich Press.