We interrupt your regularly scheduled panicking

to bring you this breaking news,

that He who sits upon the throne hath said, officially,

“Okay, Take 2, write this down, hold my drink,”

and unto his angels

hath given the following dictation:

“There shall be no new heaven and earth, 

no land and no sea, 

but one,

a single holy city:

a Sea of Roses. 

And in this place, there shall be 

no death, no mourning, no tears nor pain—

a world as thornless as Zephirine Drouhin,

cherry-pink,

and forever climbing.

To the thirsty, I will give water—

and by the thirsty, mostly I mean—

yes, you guessed it,

the roses.

Scrap the blueprints for the fiery lake; 

instead, let tightly packed pink and apricot-orange Portlandias

shoot like starbursts from the eyes of politicians.

Let snarls of rosa rugosa bury every barbed wire fence,

and from the mouth of every gun, 

let fire a fountain of Joseph’s Coat, 

glowing like a lava fall.

Let the asphalt of every shopping mall crack, crumble, and collapse,

gulped down, devoured by Double Delights.

[burp]

Let all of existence finally be 

one single Fragrant Cloud.

If the world is a wedding, well, then,

cover the Arc de Triomphe in Beau Narcisse and Rosa Mundi.

Think less about the bride and groom, 

and more about

the Earth’s bouquet—

and the dew-specked, blue-violet gleaming 

of my Twilight Zone corsage.