First Lines

First lines from times like these 

should pack a punch...

“We lived through days of dying...”

or some such metered remove,

written by a stonedead miserprophet

miffed that Nineveh 

might well survive

this holy blast.

“Opportunity of a lifetime, it was.”

Nearly. Frankly, he prefers a corpse.

The hands of dead weight 

can be posed so beautifully.

“Darling Galatea,

sweet nubile disorder,

and I shall roll my trousers,

and I shall roll my trousers,

and your arms, and your arms.”

Diegesis gods itself,

verbing nouns.

“I’m exceptional, you know.

Exceptional.

I love a good disaster.

In fact, I scribbled a thousand up 

myself until well...

“Lord, here it is, stark and stiff.

Not nearly as fine 

as I could have done it up.

“Why bending the thing 

will snap it quite in two.

How crude.”