Psychedelic Death Shroud
Pretty please with sugar on top,
it’s what kids say to exact a favor.
Panic is when you talk in a loud,
loud voice in the mountains. 1
Pedigree is a frame of mind,
unless you live in Eastern Kentucky.
In Eastern Kentucky it’s a psychedelic death shroud 2
or a Hasil Adkins one-man show
also featuring
Philip Seymour Kafka
Ralph Waldo Kardashian
Jennifer Love Angelou
Edgar Allen Streep
and
J.D. Bono
with special guest,
the hitchhiker.
Thanks for the ride, Lady! 3
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1 From Brian Evenson’s Facebook status update. The original status read: “Max: Panic is when
you talk in a loud, loud voice in the mountains. Max, I believe, is Brian’s son. In any case, he
was kind enough to allow me to appropriate the line for this poem.
2 From an episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s program Cosmos. Tyson used this phrase to
describe the aftermath of a supernova.
3 A line from “The Hitch-hiker” the third episode of the 1987 movie Creepshow 2. In the
episode a cheating wife returning from a tryst runs over a random guy trying to catch a ride. He
zombie haunts her repeating this phrase over and over.