-The Refreshments, "Buy American"

Sinister hornblasts travel
Through the roof of a ghostly cathedral
Rotting in the Plains of Desperation.
Facing a fire-blackened tabernacle,
Supplicating on a pew made from human bones,
Speaking to an altar stained with the sudden horror of blood,
A single churchgoer whispers half-formed thoughts
Ignoring the incorporeal walls around him,
Praying for anything to prove
The fruitlessness of what he already knows deep in his id.
A mutilated eye turns toward the howling wolves
Sitting somewhere beyond the reality of the tempest
In his head.

"My Lord, my Lord, why have you forsaken me?"

And it came to pass
That there were shepherds in the fields
Keeping watch over their flocks by night,
When Lo!

Something was supposed to happen but never did.

Hail Humaniy! Full of Grief,
No-one is with you.
Suffering are you among your delusions,
And suffering is the fruit of your womb:
Thought.
Pitiful people, mothers of pain,
Pray for yourselves now and at the hour of your birth,
Amen.

There may be a Santa Claus, Virginia, bit...
A bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck to believe...

He sings triumphant, filling the rafters with
A voice from another reality
And walks out of the church slowly,
Hearing footfalls echo off stony walls.
He hurls a rock through an already broken window,
Walks though the yellow-dead grass of the Plain,
Out of Valhalla,
Warrior-poet without a sword or pen.

One final look at a grave,
Straw hat crushed carelessly nearby,
He crossed the final wooden bridge,
Insignificant under the gray clouds covering countless galaxies,
Wistfully strokes his chin,
Lights a match,
Drops it,
And vanishes into himself.