a r t i e


artie would be so pleased
that we scored some new material
at his funeral today

the reverend reverend clay pheenspurgen
laying on the jesus maximus
how he raised the dead and his own dead self
healed the sick, freaked out the romans
and just generally made a clean break
with the laws of physics and biology and causality

artie could've perfectly impersonated
reverend clay pheenspurgen
artie would have done pheensburgen
better than pheensburgen
his sonorous pompous baritone explicating the miracle of it all and
life of course is a miracle but he has no clue why it is
the reverend talking jesus cause he never met artie
but wait - he never met jesus, either
so there you go

but that didn't prevent his accusatory stare
as he spoke of christ's perfection
we all knew he was looking at calvin who was sittin right next to me
calvin shifted a tad uncomfortably in the "bleachers"
and I shifted away from him, just because

the reverend reverend clay pheenspurgen
insisted that artie wasn't really dead
even though he actually was really dead
that's why we were all in the room together
and pheenspurgen didn't know artie
but we did

artie loved cats
was the best pheenspurgen
could conjur
but we all knew artie loved guitar
cats and guitar and the way things are

eternal life blah blah blah
paul on the road to damascus blah blah blah
but when the rev finally wound it up
and looked to the side for the music to take over
artie's wife Barbara flipped the switch
and the loudspeakers blared, "everybody must get stoned"
and artie was, yeah, there and over there too

we noticed smiles in the crowd
the first fully human response
noted in patterson & sons funereal home
in a long long time

thanks, artie, we owe ya' one
or one more, we should say
thanks for the music you made
thanks for the harmonies
thanks for battling demons
to the death