Telemarketer Malediction

Even your own mother would opt for obscene
collect phone calls from her parish priest
over hearing from you.  How AM I
this evening? you ask. I am Lucifer-
frothing-rabid-in-the-middle-of-a-root-canal-
with-no-laughing-gas-in-Hell-mad.  And you, doc,
are the puddle of fresh puke
my new Gucchi boot splats into
on its first unlucky step out of the Monte Carlo
right in front of my very favorite
steakhouse—you concocted-from-bean-curd
meat substitute, you! You bonemeal-stuffed-
hotdog factory reject, you! You
single-wide-trailer-hide-a-bed-pain
in the lumbar of our society. You are lower than
six a.m. Sunday morning leaf blowers,
than roadside disposable diaper
bundles. Lower than funeral procession
road rage. More useless even
than Day Of The Dead organ donors,
San Quentin prison lost and found,
than particleboard hot tubs,
a street pimp’s receipts at an IRS audit. You
commuter flight sumo seatmate
with halitosis and the hiccups. You hot-quit
intermission in the middle of a cliffhanger
love scene. You collapsed plastic-bladdered

box of Beaujolais. You Aqua Velva
aftershave hangover. You disintegrating
winning lotto ticket spitball
in the washing machine tub bottom, you,
you…you…you are more infuriating than
a black gnat hatch at a nudist weenie roast
but, yes, I’ll gladly give you my MasterCard
number and pin, buy whatever
you’re calling at beer-thirty to hawk, if only you
will lend me your doggerel ear
long enough to loathe, incidentally,
your foaming-putrid-from-the-test-tube-lips,
slime-mold-science-gone-awry
bungled fungal beginnings with THIS!

Rock ‘N’ Rowel CDs are available from the Western Folklife Center (phone 775-738-7508, ext 2) and CD Baby.

© Paul Zarzyski. All rights reserved. These words may not be reprinted or reposted without the author's written permission.