“I was out in the blue American night”

according to Ocean Vuong without great

expectations, without a computer, without

new shoes in which to climb the High Peaks

where the lodges of a confederation of tribes

once lived, where the TB patients came to die

emulating Keats without the words to ratify

immortality. Ghost warriors accompany us

into fogbows, bent arrow pathways lined with

the carcasses of wild game who fought the French

during the primitive wars. Echoes of their

chants fill the valleys with sounds like post

industrial death metal, bargain basement Ebonics

texts, Hank Williams inflected after hours blues.

Blaze Starr

A celestial event, red star at night, death

star in the morning sky. Son of the morning star,

lie me down by the river where the ghost ponies go, 

where cavalry charges go to die. Circle the wagons

boys, they’re riding Shetland ponies. A strippers

delight, a kingfisher’s prize before a bullet laid

him down. You know what they say down South: “if it 

keeps on raining levees gonna break. Mean old

levee taught me to weep and moan.” Unlike Gypsy

Rose who wrote mysteries while living at February

House with Auden, Lincon Kirstin, Salvador and Gala,

Carson McCullers and the Bowles’ among others.

As long as they paid the rent and didn’t act out who 

cared where the money came from.

The Moonstone

among the Provincetown cabanas

where the jaded sorcerers hide their

magic veils for costume parties made

popular during the plague years. 

The moon rocks are falling from holes

in the ceiling where the wormholes end.

Ice agents are demanding passports

to receive admittance to places no one

ever returns from. The future will be

dictated by false starts and alternative facts

that expire once the cult’s government

lease expires. No wonder tough guys 

don’t dance.

Moonstruck

during a total eclipse. Perfect weather

for sleepwalking or banana fishing: 

obstacles may be treacherous like 

black holes in the sand, quicklime

on the boardwalk. Even the heads of

the view masters have splinters and

the nightbirds are confused when feral

animals go where the wild things are

when the shit hits the fan. Galoshes are

mandatory during messy weather

and breakwater jetties are aswarm

with jelly fish, men of war with tarnished

armor and sidearms that only fire blanks.

Now that the red tide has advanced past

the boardwalk it’s time to abandon

the concrete bunkers that once represented

the last lines of defense. Now we know

how the French felt when the Maginot Line

was breached, why the captain always

goes down with the ship. 

Double Feature Movie Matinees

and the Kraken Wakes! Science fiction

or foreign policy? Ask your AI

misinformation disseminator. Have you

fed a triffid today? Is your Midwich

cuckoo? Fall into the rabbit hole

where truth, reason and logic go to die.

Where the Red Queen screams, “Off with

their heads.” And all her whims become 

law just like in real life. Has anyone

inquired after the health of the Red King?

Is his head intact and still in place?

As a John Wyndham heroine once said,

“How do we know where we are going,

If we don’t know where we are?”