3/30 "Runaway Wonderland" by William A. Wood

For Andi,

When my eyelids swan dive into the empty black swimming pool called death,
I will ride the juggernaut railroad unstoppable until I reach that sideshow in the sky.

The place where the righteous ugly go, where mistakes pile up like rejected applications to jobs they never wanted.

Tod Browning wave "hello" from his coffin.
"Buried Alive Boy" again finally, car wreck still kissing his face.

Diane Arbus flash frames me, goofy candid. This is the only time I've ever seen her smile, the bearded lady's tongue dancing around the paradise of where Diane's shoulder shakes hands with her neck.

This ain't your parents' picture book heaven.

This is a feather boa back-yard party.

Vincent Price shakes a martini glass full of virgin blood at me.
His left hand is throwing knives at a starlet on a spinning wheel, a 1940s Aphrodite somebody left alone with a bathroom, bottle of gin and head full of bad decisions.

This sideshow sings to me in a corndog and cotton candy chorus of off-key Hallelujahs.

Lewis Carroll cries into a slice of cake, his opium smoke rings spinning circles into stories into crescent moon mouth alley cat wonders.

The Siamese twins quit tongue kissing long enough to wave "hello." and breathe.

I run into a crowd of poets laughing, talking fast backwards for kicks, every line of every poem ever written still sleeping under their tongues for extra safe keeping.

I drink the scenery in deep with a crazy straw,

Inhale the smoke and perfume of the unwashed...

and feel All Right,
Despite everything.