The End of the World Polka Poem by Terence Winch

There is a story about a ghost who knelt in the attic with his
mouth open, his tongue hanging out,
and even the wind was frightened
of him, and even the moon and stars
were frightened of him. He could extract
all the wisdom out of everyone in the house
and devour all the holiness and knowledge
that ever hath been embedded in the hearts
of all who dwelt in that dark place
of pestilence. Oh, who would ever deny it?
Who would have enough air to inhale
the necessary antidotes of fierce courage
and forbidden thoughts of everlastingness?

The constellations wink and the deep and terrifying dark of the unthinkable
universe, the one, you know, that keeps expanding further and further out
into the farthest reaches of the tiny molecule that is the actual universe
wherein all the other
supposedly infinite universes reside,
that deep and terrifying dark
releases its hot, uptown electricity
into the cosmic, comic fallen world of light, where people get married,
daughters talk back to their fathers,
and one spidery ding in the windshield
spreads everywhere throughout the kingdom
until the ground cracks open
and the priests fall in to their doom.