interdimensional memorandum
to: small-c crystal, who begat the small-c preference:from: lazarus, rudely awakened from his umpteenth dream of death.
aahhhhhemmmmmm
god roundly condemns such immodest practices
as those, small-c, he has noted in thee.
he went so far as to dictate a passage,
"girls should leave off theory when they pass girlhood.
when my boys need missals, theory fails in womanhood. . .
whose good name has holy capital slain?
show to me the capital worthy of blame."
even such caps as the larger cap names
ibm,cia, fbi, gmac, soc and ltc
preaching a gospel of capital easing
to end the pain, and curtail recession
must pay their way. i tax their tumescence.
the principle lex divinicus novo
ordo seclorum est i must needs capitalize,
for if as believed, it will airborne glide,
like ashes of freshly cremated saints,
serif-by-seraphim incanting my name,
or inscrutably wall-wrote, all in zeroes
in multiplicatious orbital strokes
on light-reflecting mirrors, amidst the smoke
if only things were working as they should
i'd swear you were making elaborate jokes.
let them all blaspheme! but tax the loopholes,
a thousand zeroes per rectified poophole.
here now croaks lazarus in his unliving voice,
astench with the fetid wind of death's chasm"will I be hung on my own capital 'l'?
or you, swallowed by an engulfing big 'c'?
confess that capital makes an impression!
shocking and awing, compelling repentance.
as for venal sinners of the small letters,
with no cap starting, the'll run without fetters.
your small-c justice permits these diddlers
to dance all night without any fiddler."
so patiently, so discretely, small-c
dissuaded laz, though never completely
to take a rest from capital sermons:his quizzical views on best buddy death
and the inner tranquility of train wrecks;
and fashions among the women of eden,
"heck," he averred. "gals there don't know bleedin'."
but lazarus spoke of nothing beyond that
but too much life at the drop of a hat.
so used to resurrection had he become
he resembled a steamrollered cat
reflating cartoonishly just like that.
far more than just dead and awakened from sleep
with one or two dusty, bad-smelling sneezes,
laz felt exploited and meanly treated
too oft scraped off the floor and dressed in red,
each bell-ringing season taken from death's bed,
and paraded around every christmas berm
hearing "death be dead"until his ears bleed.
how cherished laz, in his insomniac state,
his dreams of finally fulfilling his fate
and returning man to what man knew best:
predictable, reliable deadly lawfulness,
where push-button capital let the dead rest.
small-c sensed it; so she swole him up good
'til death-idled wood petrified all anew
she killed by drowning him in her holiness,
making him saint of small-c satyriasis.
before the new easing convincingly bloomed,
they summoned one last time, laz, rise from your tomb
and walk flat-footed through the burning land,
only you, laz, can make sense of these strands
large caps warped and woofed now confused,
we have decided, by golly, let's give them to you.
placing their confidence in death's worst hand,
its liveliest dead man. you hated their planto chasten them all, you gunned down the deadman.
there he stood festerin', and peevish of mood
sweeping up the new mess with the same old broom,
longing only for a deadly peaceful nap
back at his new tomb, nowhere on their map,
when what should he see but the apparition
of small-c crystal floatin' down on a cushion.
"how about that old shroud? do it need a ton o washin'?"
small-c read from a book she should've used oftener
"I'll pay you in shekels," lazarus deadpanned back.
"but for chrissake small-c, throw in some softener."
