curious object in my hand,

woman/teenager gone,

bizarre instrument foreign land,

disappearing liaison;

far-off frozen red sand, I demand

save me from this panopticon.

"Just shadows in the fog."

Incremental loss unnoticed. Ignored. Red slurpee disaster. Bedside love revealed. Dance club heat enjoyed. Man lost in hurt. Desire given wide berth.

"No amount of study or research can stop whatever it is that's destroying the sky...."

Bright bright James Dean daylight katana blade fight, slash flip throw all in plain sight, machine gun bursts, explosions galore, man oh man, do I want more.

"Listen to what I'm saying. With your skills, we could make some easy money."

Frank heaves the dusty, splintering crate from the flatbed of the truck. He breathes weakly, his body skinny as a chicken bone. Never been good at anything else, he thinks, sweating in the New York heat. No one who counts notices the daring daylight theft.

"I can see it!"

Hair-soaked, standing before the bag, he is an unimposing sharpness, a body forged to figure and spin and strike. Inside, his red intuition whispers and questions. Something has long haunted his life. Black sheet ghosts of the past.

"That's the kind of girl I'd like to settle down with, pretty but not too pretty."

Note: For a moment, Doc James confused Karen Carlson with Carol Bagdasarian. He feels badly about this.

poison seeping

burning circle,

dystopian

amulet spawns

father nightmare

babylon.

fragile candle

hopeful ray,

utopian

amulet dawns

ghostly daughter

eidolon.

"This is everybody's future."

Memory. Ghost.

Mystery. Joke.

History. Blood.

Rose.

"Well, I'm sure I wouldn't know anything about what the Polish people think!"

Cigar whisky jealousy. Sad sad man. Moustache in darkness. Moustache flaking skin and long dead fingernail growth. Daddy put me inside you. She will understand.

"You've truly taken your father's place."