27 (Dogs of Society)

“When are you gonna come down? When are you going to land?
I should have stayed on the farm, should have listened to my old man”
–Elton John

Steel slices wind, and
I step through the tear
into… what?

Fear is a blood-red line
through a feral garden, sown with
the flesh, watered with the blood
of the damned, swaying,
in time to the bloodlust in
your rattling heart,
calling
Demanding presence,
pulling you and your
ghosts along, a band of
munchkin marionettes dancing
in spastic, stutter-step motion
down a red-brick road,
and you don’t know who’s pulling the
strings except to say it
sure in fuck isn’t
Dorothy, but it just might be the Devil
raging up behind you

Poem by Shane Douglas Keene

READ THE SERIAL NOVEL BY JOSH MALERMAN