fiasco

if you haven't, take the Southern Literary Trail.

the southern terrain, in black and white,

proves the South is still Gothic.

towns and towns under trial,

the beguiled darkling little graves, 

cupboards of madness, south full of ghosts,

the mannequins line up out of order.

deliberations on backroads,

two lanes no passing worry about the woke

as mothers bleed out. tell your daughters,

dyed dark, nailed in black 

tattooed taboo in crumbling antebellum,

Momma's boys only think they are ready for war.

pickled memories, color him father antique process. 

torn incels, jealous of the slaughter

on a small strip in the southeast corner,

talk of peace in the promised land,

cast the pulpit’s vote in vengeance,

does it take a natural born to see

the southern terrain in black and white?

prove the South is still Gothic?

mercury outboard alone out on the lake.

whiskey or bourbon alcoholic novel,

artists depict the faces of Faulkner. 

you do you in plantations, I prefer silos

covered in vines. 

reckoning begins at this table. give and take

comeback sauce lit, underrated… everything

to be in two places at once take the times.

only come back in madness.

bought up acres of farmland taken back,

cotton and rice, duck gumbo, and red clay.

fishhook faces lit in neon shoot street dice. 

a tall slender with a short fat one

squeezed into the foreign fiasco.

American oxfords praise the bluesman,

bumper displays the hate symbols. battle flags 

lack code, hack code, romanticizing shock graffiti.

gangs versus American History X are sharpening good fortune

out of the ancient. tall pillars, high curved ceilings,

and pointed arches, rap child strangled in kudzu.

there is a coffin in Elmwood you can play your music to.

drop a pebble on the headstone. dead flowers under magnolias

and purple chaste tree. dark angels put to sleep. family betroth

all this comes before reconciliation.

trendies punked desire to know what comes after goth…