The November Selected Poet is Fred R. Kane

Please feel free to email Fred at:

manfred_arcane@yahoo.com

A PRODUCT OF COLLECTIVE SUBCONSCIOUS MANIFESTATION

Maybe it’s the drugs.
A whole generation, for the most part, trippin’ balls or sedated to near comatose.
Old aged drop outs: trailer and ghetto dwellers featured on real time cop shows,
void of drivers licences and auto registrations
(but well stocked with junk, meth, weed and prescription pain killers;)
riding wino scooters or lawn mowers to and from the local red dot.
Let’s not forget the college kids who experimented with altered states,
and grew up to take their places on top the food chain:
the successful and damaged “superior” humanity.
Could be the drugs. 
Probably aided by comic books, drive in flicks, and the rock n roll
of which our conservative parents warned us:
all that wonderful mind rot from those laid-to-waste days so revered
by us old ass delinquent and nerd kids alike.
You may take that as an ex-stoner’s explanation
as to why UFO encounters are ever increasing, 
not to mention Big Foot and Nessie sightings. 
Vampires, ghosts and shape shifters are also getting a lot of attention as of late. 

Drugs and severely fucked, but somewhat focused mass subconsciousness
could be responsible for giving form to, and making real
all the things that were once merely mist and smoke shows,
bedtime fairy tales, and ghost stories around the ol’ campfire.
Bad drugs and not so good ideas
transforming matter by power of collective mind...
Now it seems there really are monsters under the beds of our kids.

I’ll have to do some serious research to see if this hypophysis has any merit. 
Something to keep in mind after I pry my kid’s ankle loose
from this ugly red eyed bastard’s green scaly fingers!

OF AND ABOVE HIGH LEVEL FAIRY TALES

“The giant stepped from the shade of the total eclipse.
He cast a long nuclear shadow.
The demons, goblins and pestilent witches fell by his hand...”  Begins
the bedtime stories recited by the emperor.
His children, lulled to sleep, and dreaming of 
the wealth gained from easy-come victories.

Remember that fairytale of the feral children?
The two dog sucking founders of Rome?
Maybe there's some truth in that image:
The human condition rendered,
emphasized by the graffiti carved in Hadrian’s Wall.

Today, we see in the the rattle can runes on some steel/brick ruins that
children of the new underclass are writing their own grand narrative
in rebuttal to one created for their conditioning.

And they lived happily ever after?
Our inner children ask;
tucked in beds, blanket-safe, with a dim light on.
Nervous of the thing that lies beneath.

REACHING LENORE

She believed in the Christian afterlife. Still,
Lenore shrugged off eternal damnation
and took herself out. Oh, deed.
Pretty much the ending I would’ve envisioned:
dirt and flowers. Flowers. Dirt.
As the pen is to sword: inspiration for war,
so the needle to pen: the addict’s statement.
Tracts and tracks.

She loved poetry.
From our time together, I guess it rubbed off:
an appreciation for old verse, and a belief in some kind of hereafter.
There was a time when I was indifferent to both.
It all changed one mourning.

From the radio,
distinct to my unfocused ear, came
an obsolete phrase intended only for me.
Cloaked in guitars, but present nonetheless:
“Felo-de-se!”
Her confession.
“Felo-de-se!”
An invitation from a ghost, reaching.
We should’ve left together.

Songs with secret lyrics, and hidden voices
recounting not the how, nor the where,
only the why;
suggest we be joined in perdition.
Ours, the same disease.
The same demons.
Always hidden, but not from the unfocused eye:
floral patterns on wallpaper—on sheets, reveal
the deformed scowling faces of infernal creatures.
Most disturbing:
the reappearing image of a twisted dragon.

Sedate,
at her funeral, my head was captured by flowers.

Now, I’m weary of living
with ghosts and demons.
In the winter dusk, with the main road looking white as fine china,
I’ll reach her.
Gunning it, sticking throttle to damnation,
not every song carries her voice: this highway sings in a different pitch.
Not all found shapes
frown with evil intent.
The oncoming vehicle, why
it’s got one hell of a grin!

Fred R Kane has lived in every east coast state from Maryland to Alabama. Finally settling in South Carolina where he now resides with his wife, and all the wildlife his back yard can attract. Fred prefers to write verse when he’s not working or playing the blues on one of his many guitars. He especially loves to write dark satire and speculative poetry.