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The Bills

with apologies to Edgar Allan Poe

I
See the mailbox with the bills—
Always bills!
What a world of misery their awful sight instills!
How they trouble, trouble, trouble,
And their menace roils the air!
Causing blood to overbubble
And anxiety to double
With a maddening despair;
Tolling pay, pay, pay,
In a most unyielding way,
To a dundunnabulation that so graspingly chills
From the bills, bills, bills, bills,
Bills, bills, bills—
From the squeezing and the wringing of the bills.

II
See the mounting piles of bills,
Constant bills!
What a world of worriment their stridency instills!
And arriving with each day
How they bring out our dismay!
From the icy-steely shakes,
The jilts and jars,
What a fitful jolting quakes
From the grapple-claw that glistens, while it rakes
Cold as Mars!
Oh, from out the sounding shrills,
What a harsh cacophony tumultuously spills!
How it trills!
How it chills
Ever present! How it fills
With its leaden fist of ills From the yoking and the choking
Of the bills, bills, bills,
Of the bills, bills, bills, bills
Bills, bills, bills,
To the calling and the galling of the bills!

III
See the swift expanding bills,
Endless bills!
All our joy and promise, now, their exigency kills!
In the fretful toss of night
How our dreams fall to our plight!
Too much destitute of hope,
We can only mope, mope,
To the moon,
In a piteous concession to the snaring of the mire,
In a losing confrontation with the bleak engulfing mire,
Rising higher, higher, higher,
Near a swallowing entire,
And in shortfall since forever,
Once—once to breathe or never,
With a sigh of relief-filled tune.
Oh, the bills, bills, bills!
All our joy so quickly spills
In Despair!
How we weep, and gnash, and wail!
What a horror they entail
From the bosom of the importuning air!
And the end we hardly know,
By the pounding,
And the hounding,
Of the scourge of gloom and woe;
In arrears up to the gills,
All the wrangling
And the tangling,
How despondence swells and fills— By the swelling and the filling in the fury of the bills,
Of the bills,
Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,
Bills, bills, bills
In the fluster and the flurry of the bills!

IV
See the heaping of the bills
Crushing Bills!
What a world of urgency their frigid scorch distills
With the nightmares of each night,
How we shudder with affright
At the cold intimidation of their tone!
For every sum that rages
From the numbers on their pages
Brings a groan.
And collectors—ah, collectors
Those relentless ghastly specters
On the phone,
And who, calling, calling, calling,
In that dreaded, pressing drone,
And in manner most appalling
Leave no flesh upon the bone—
They are neither calm nor caring
They are neither warm nor sparing
They lack Souls:
And their chief it is who grinds;
And he binds, binds, binds,
Binds The grip of the bills!
And his callous bosom thrills
For the grip of the bills!
And he prances as he grills;
Tolling pay, pay, pay
In a most unyielding way,
To the grip of the bills
Of the bills:
Tolling pay, pay, pay
In a most unyielding way,
To the clenching of the bills,
Of the bills, bills, bills—
To the wrenching of the bills;
Tolling pay, pay, pay
As he chills, chills, chills,
In a gleeful, ruthless way,
To the binding of the bills,
Of the bills, bills, bills:
To the grinding of the bills,
Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,
Bills, bills, bills,
To the wringing and the stinging of the bills.

by Todd Giberson
in volume 4 issue 2

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