In Search of Monster Hunters

Human beings dressed in costumes
rewarded by electronic bagpipes

beneath the placid surface.
Leading experts wield no guns.

Slanting shadows in specific areas
are available to all.

A unique sound when I am
eight months old. Reputable

individuals from all walks of life
are a distant relatives of man.

People have seen god
at a major academic institution.

Divining crystals erase any possible
rapport in the shaking leaves.

A salmon, twelve feet high,
ook ook old friend. For a few magic

moments, dedicated men
come face to face with Leonard

at last.

 

In Search of Dracula

Not one of them
in the field of Carpathian daisies.
A surgeon & a shepherd
wield symbolic power
in frightening corners.
Shittyfluted ghosts are
turned into rock by the rising
sun. Leonard dons
chiaroscuro like the undead
lived. Gloaming blue
climbs the walls of
Victorian repression.
There is no Dracula
in Romanian folklore, but bats
feed on cattle
in South America.
In the socialist present, looking back
on the bloody past.
The truth of a man’s life
is just inside the door. It can be fun
to explore the son
of the dragon. The Renaissance
bred art & tyranny. Clack
of a woodblock to ward
the spectacle of the Eastern
Orthodox church.
Pan to skyscraper in Transylvania
through the red filter of time.
Few of these faces remain,
not even Leonard’s; the layers of history
stripped away & killed in battle
near Bucharest.
The cock crows over
the dark peace of death, dissolving
in a puff of smoke in the mist.
Legends die slowly &
Leonard reclaims the human spirit.

 

In Search of Firewalkers

Blue cauliflower of soot
around the world.
Ashes & rubies; outsiders
are severely burned.

A filmic sheen
for cowpokes
at the birth of civilization.
Firewalking across
the ocean. Leonard feels
pain, opens his shirt
a few buttons. Hypnosis
behind a desk. Disassociated
from the beach at Nice.

Bread in the shape
of trees; it is night
in Macedonia. She rides
him over the coals, deeply
religious. The real answer
lies in the jump cut.

The insulating effect
of the spiritual body.
A parfait of hands
like a magnet.
Coconut husks
replace wood
in the fires of
Brahma.

In silence, a dignified
act of defiance.
Leonard & a single candle
are as old as mankind
itself.

 

In Search of the Amityville Horror

Low light film clips
living inside this house.

A blank book
in the sewing room.

It was cold
because it was winter.

Anxiety is feasible,
constantly stoking a fire.

Leonard emerges
from the bookshelf,

singing constantly.
Changing behavior,

reblessing yourself.
Get organized

into the same room.
A more dangerous force

in a red tie. Vibrations
from the Massapequa.

 

In Search of Shark Worshipers

The unlucky majority
suffering from pure aggression.

The untrained eye
damages the submarine.

Electric wetsuits,
underwater parachutes

& an old-fashioned stick.
Stalking victims electronically.

Detecting vibrations, the waste
of a tuna cannery.

Leonard wages all-out war
in a Hawai’ian shirt, his name

is still revered in modern
Fiji. The only person killed

is an unbeliever from another town.
Authorities are building guardrails,

clinging precariously to the Stone Age.
Lucky enough in 1973,

it was just one of those things.
The people are bitter & confused;

the living dead must be consulted
about what is about to occur.

Other sharks are ready
to defeat the devil in a sudden frenzy.

 

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Mark Lamoureux is an Assistant Professor at Housatonic Community College. He is the author of four full-length collections of poems, It’ll Never Be Over for Me (Black Radish Books, 2016), 29 Cheeseburgers + 39 Years (Pressed Wafer, 2013), Spectre (Black Radish Books, 2010) and Astrometry Organon (BlazeVox, 2008). A fifth book, Horologion, is forthcoming from Poet Republik, Ltd. in 2019. His work has most recently appeared in Fence, Dream Pop and Fourteen Hills. In 2014 he won the 2nd Annual Ping Pong Poetry prize for his poem “Winterhenge/Summerhenge,” selected by David Shapiro.