I’d Like
to Speak to the Manager
Carl E. Reed
There is no hell like heaven:
no drink, no sex, no drugs;
just the “ecstasy” of praising
the treacherous triune god.
In olden days of yore
God flood-murdered damn
near all
everything that fucked
& feasted
walked, or ran,
or crawled.
I’m rending this bright
garment
battering white wings
to ruin,
playing frisbee with my
halo
leaving towering gold
walls strewn
with rude, crude brute graffiti.
I’d scream but I have
no breath.
What a nightmare immortality!
What a hell this heaven death!
Carl
E. Reed is currently employed as an operations specialist at a window, siding,
and door company just outside Chicago. Former jobs include: U.S. marine,
long-haul trucker, improvisational actor, cab driver, construction worker, and
door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. His poetry has been published in The
Iconoclast, Spectral Realms, & Deathlehem: Holiday
Horrors; short stories in Black Gate, newWitch, and Sci-Fi
Lampoon magazines. His most recent weird fiction “Dinner at Winthrop’s: A
Tale of Sufferance” was published 2020 in the weird romance anthology Down
the Rabbit Hole, vol. III.
