Second Stage – A Hybrid Cento

we watch and we are always here

–

fog everywhere. fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping, and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city.

darkness gathers all around. As the streetlights by the river blink on, i set out down the deserted streets for the western hill.

i could almost feel the creature from the black lagoon breathing in some dim corner.

a cat sauntering along stopped to watch, a skinny, brown-striped cat whose tail was slightly bent at the tip.

–

i was the victim suddenly laid waste as if by a phallic god, slammed by the rushing blood against the floor of the universe, the heart pounding, emptying the frail form it sought to protect.

this was the second stage of my life, a step in my personal evolution – abandoning the idea of being different, and settling for normal.

i drink and drown in want. i drink. i choke

to end this way, a smear of gut and shell

Works Cited

Choi, Franny. Soft Science. Alice James Books, 2019.

Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Oxford University Press, 1996.

Rice, Anne. Prince Lestat: The Vampire Chronicles. Alfred A. Knopf, Random House, 2014.

Rice, Anne. The Witching Hour. Ballantine Books, 1990.

Murakami, Haruki. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Vintage Books, 1991.

Murakami, Haruki. Kafka on the Shore. Vintage Books, 2005.

Murakami, Haruki. South of the Border, West of the Sun. Vintage Books, 1998.

Murakami, Haruki. A Wild Sheep Chase. Vintage Books, 1989.