an executioner's song

[betteroffbad]

my grandma said when we are dead
every bug we ever killed will swarm around our head
or crawl up our legs with their own legs in tow
I don't believe in an afterlife but I guess you never know
If there is such an afterlife grandma probably won't visit me
when I think of all the bugs I killed it must be more than seventy-three
this morning when I woke I looked across and saw a roach
wandering across the pillow and without a shred of self-reproach
I beat the poor big thing to death with many a whack and squelch
he wasn't doing any harm we can't all look like Raquel Welch
well if my grandma told the truth I'll meet him when the sky
comes down upon me like a giant Bible by and by
He'll stagger up all mashed and mangled and say, but really, why?
I wasn't doing any harm, I'm just a cockroach guy
I'll say, my friend, I just don't know, I'm always predisposed
to kill a cockroach when it wanders into my abode
that isn't good enough, he'll say, if he says anything
and then the bugs I killed throughout my life begin to sing:
How could you, why did you, what did you do
we were just trying to live our lives on the earth just like you