I. you have always felt betrayed, a slave to objects of beauty, of warm winters of new orleans, of magnolia & cerealboxes of mailboxes & bookshops & mausoleums & antique shops of your borrowed bicycle which you hustled up & down the sunrise, sundown steps of magical & melancholic holy hell of hysterical & historical heaven of st. charles II. of unfathomable loneliness you knew could never be healed, that once it got started you could never conceal, turning into the eternal- compassionate-stranger and social-observer trailing that dreamy streetcar clattering from fantasy to nightmare, from hot to sweltering from rain to pouring, from dusk to evening III. never giving up wondering when you'd finally feel free IV. the life-span of the king of the queen of the prince of the princess of the insect of the witch of the coalminer of the convict of the whip of the wand of the crown of the clown of all those things having fallen down of the drive-in which reads "closed for sea son" of the dance-hall of spirits in the wind of coney island of the mother of jesus of the blessed virgin wrapped in chicken wire to keep out hooligans of the decay of the soul of the hole of civilization of the cliffside of the clothesline of the seaside of the skyline of a sign which reads "downtown mountain" of the screaming teakettle of the tongue of the tarantula of the sun of the spider of the moon of the lagoon of the shadows of seasons of the crow's nest of the cocoon of the coyote of the crabapples of the wind of the womb of promises of betrayals of a dish of blackberries perched on your pillow of the hospital-child of the crow of the croccodile all in black-and-blue all soul-survivors of the drizzle of the thunder of your mind finally open of glowing gaslight of graveyards of phantoms and saviors of the dogs and gods of boys locked-down in group homes of belfries and bones of cops and killers of old ice fishermen returning home below crystal-blue glaciers of the bread factory of the beer factory of a piping paper factory on a flickering radiant twilight lake frozen over of the orchards and oceans of the hypnotic hush of a candle of cities and cathedrals of egg nog clouds hovering over chalky crayon steeples sprouting from leggo-like villages in the holy haunted hills of your imagination

the strange but sophisticated limo-driver who is only ever seen silhouetted drives a psychotic rich girl through the graveyard she spends her days staring in a daze from the windows of her burning home while her comatose father smokes a cigarette from the long slim holder on the springs of an old headboard everyone in this town is in denial in this village of virgins & fishermen & old judges lumberjacks & lawyers engaging in wheelbarrow races on "frontage" while librarian moms tug at their eyebrows in the lost & lugubrious windows of lavish victorians rocking horses getting delivered to the seashore native-americans in long crimson canoes drifting to the lagoon where everything creaks & croons the frogs & grasshoppers & breezy branches of beautiful ruins old men in snow-white beards carrying planks of plywood from shipwrecked ships and haunted homes to the plateaus of mountains while wives who's husbands abandoned them and seem even more contented drag fallen branches to the forest of their backyard in the wild change of seasons tonight the rich girl will attend her first seance and be liberated