This is me.
Is that you?
I heard you're in Hell now
How's the food?
Did they set you up with a ranch and a hay barn?
Do you spend time riding charred souls
into the lake of fire?

I saw your reflection in plate glass
While walking the strip in downtown Palm Springs
It was 120 degrees out and rising
But you were shivering and looking for an open flame
Hoping to keep warm

I was told:
They didn't care too much for Hondo down there either …
That they no longer call you 'The Duke' …
That you've shacked up with an Englishman …
That you love to watch porno in the afternoons …
And that on Sundays you go to church
And play horseshoes with Heinrich Himmler

I was told all the flesh on your corpulent frame melted
And you now appear
As black
As a burnt marshmallow
Imagine the irony
Imagine your friends

Palm Springs is the only place on Earth
That's close enough to Hell where
Sometimes you cross over
You looked just fine to me
But maybe it was a disguise
Maybe it was my mind

You were trying to tell me that
Someone I knew was sorry


That they wanted to apologize

You were mumbling and coughing over my shoulder
Like you had pneumonia and it was winter
I stopped and watched you in the reflection
Of the Starbucks window-glass
People inside thought I'd lost my mind
They thought I was talking to myself
They couldn't see you, or probably didn't want to ...
That's okay, I don't blame them
Who'd really want to?

Tell the son of a bitch I don't want an apology
Lottery numbers are better proof that he feels my pain
I doubt he'd comply
He wouldn't do anything that would make his soul burn hotter
Especially not for me

I'm getting awful tired of running into you like this …
Out on the street, and on my way to dinner
I can only speak in code so much before I'm completely bored
People might begin to talk
I was never a fan, nor did I enjoy your movies
You probably would've blacklisted me as well
Had I known you then

I read a book about you in High School
It said you were a jackass to a lot of people
Including your family
I guess you got what you deserved
You were made moot from unseen fall-out
It completed you
It absorbed you
The nuclear winter of your own private Utah

They ripped your chest in half
When they harvested your soul
Your limbs dangled from the side board
And your expression wilted
Did you taste the juice
When they embalmed you?


Did you feel the floor drop out
When they convicted you?

Tell me …
John Wayne
This is me
Is that you?






from: During the Apocalypse (2007)