by Charles Kell
An American Werewolf in London
In one vision, I’m running naked in slow motion
across a damp field, a salmon rose poking
from my anus. In another, my eyes melt into syrupy
red wine sloshing in a plastic cup.
We stagger from the atavistic shock of recognition.
The apartment walls close in, smell of burnt
dust from an unused heater. I’ve always wanted
a nurse to feed me, stick me with needles
until my eyes lolled. I’ve always dreamed of a green
alien bursting through my front door
and slicing my throat. I’ve hungered for a bar
off the foggy moor where I can drink until my past
is cocooned in pink chiffon. There’s a spike stuck
through a wolf’s jaw. A dead, decaying best friend
warning me about the life I’m living. Evil strange
or evil ha ha? If you severed my head from my body
while my body was still plugged in you might
lift the head up and it might see its body having a great
time for once in its life. I’m a bad listener, slow
learner; in the black coffin of night the sirens
are coming for me. How dare words name.
Poet Charles Kell (he/him) is the author of Ishmael Mask, (Autumn House Press, 2023.) His first collection, Cage of Lit Glass, (Autumn House Press, 2019) was chosen by Kimiko Hahn for the 2018 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize.
Artist Edward Baranosky’s (he/him) work emphasizes the ever-changing moments of the sea. As a poet-artist he crosses the channels and pathways between the visual and the textual. Published in Eastern Structures, Haiku Avenue, Lynx Journal, Northern New England Review, Mid-Atlantic Review, Crossing Lines, Comstock Review among others. At 79, he is still emerging. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada.
Gulf Stream Magazine 