MICHAEL YOST is a poet and essayist living in rural New Hampshire with his wife and children. His essays and poems have been published in places like Modern Age, First Things, The University Bookman, Dappled Things, The Brazen Head, and others. He substacks at The Weight of Form.

The Testified and Witnessed Ballad of the Truly Risen Elvis Aaron Presley (As Reported in World News Weekly)

He rises from the purple sheen

    And velvet of his box

His sequined vest aquamarine

    Pomade spread in his locks,

---

His face unaged, bright red with youth

    As an immortal god.

He’s risen! This I know for truth

    (Although it may seem odd.)

---

He rocks death’s jailhouse even now,

    From Graceland, where he waits,

To play his last, and take a bow,

    Before the mighty fates.

---

For when Amurka’s own true king,

    Begins to gyre his pelvis

The juke-box joints will leap and sing

   “Salvation comes from Elvis.”

---

His golden buckle girding on,

    Likewise his golden shades

The King has come in bronze and brawn

   As our world’s music fades.

---

And after Armageddon, all

    Will be Banana-Bacon-

Peanut-Butter Sammich. All

     The lost, unloved, forsaken

---

He’ll shower with amphetamines,

    Cake, Coca-Cola, Jam,

Butabarbital, morphine,

    And piles of honeyed ham.

---

    Girls will dance naked, all for love

And T.V. sets will ring

    And squawk our songs and praises of

Our Once and Future King.