The Hoax
by Leonore Hildebrandt
The hoax likes cramped quarters.
It knows no limits, it does not fuck around,
and it won’t go away.
The hoax is ready to see you now.
It’s unsurpassed at deceiving itself about its own merits.
About its talents. How it can swing a rope
to land around your neck — amazing.
It borrows things it won’t ever return.
It never runs out of ammunition.
The hoax has a problem with meddling
and pricks up its ears when other hoaxes are around.
It hates being called un–American.
The hoax has no shame —
accused of being a super–spreader,
it calls for a meeting just to complain.
The hoax puffs out its chest
and explains the extraordinary event
with an equally extraordinary tale.
There is no escaping its voice — it won’t relent,
proclaiming the truths of the day.
In The Capital City
by Peter Finch
India Lima Oscar Victor Echo Sierra
Tango Hotel India Sierra
Papa Lima Alpha Charlie Echo
Whiskey Hotel Oscar
Delta Oscar Echo Sierra November Tango
Delta India Foxtrot Foxtrot
Delta India Foxtrot Foxtrot
Yellow Dancer Duster Rank Antony Instant Gripper
Golden Oldsmobile Columbaria Huish
Dancer Dancer Yippee Rank Yarrow
Columbaria Yellow Column Huish Winston Yesterday Nozzle
Antony Rank Illegitimate Greyhound Terlezki
Sophia Kringle Instant Philharmonic
Lowther Lowther Lowther Lowther
Maggie Valley
by Peter Finch
Maggie Valley, Haywood County, pop 648, home of
Raymond Fairchild, half–Cherokee banjo picker,
says so at the city limits. Sun glints from the
chrome of Kawasaki and Harley Electra Glide,
grey–haired leather bikers with fat wives, no one
smoking. Every bluegrass act that comes on stage
is proud of the Lord and ain’t afraid to say.
Jesus gets more of a cheer than Doc Watson.
The pensioner in an electric cart next to me,
breathing through a mask, says son, this is the real
music, Bobby Osborne’s high nasal soaring
Kentucky. You don’t get that where you
come from. No sir. No alcohol policy strictly enforced.
Green earth is enough. Suited like Mormons
but for the snakeskin shoes Quicksilver
sing acapella that makes your neck hair rise.
Crone in a white hat with feather dances
a bluegrass shuffle on a two foot board
brought for the purpose. Ralph Stanley
76 sings about death but no one dies.
Cross, banjo, mandolin, boiled peanuts,
moonshine, cross. Y’all come back.
This is God’s country. 5000 feet up.
Near enough.
Trains
by Peter Finch
I gave up playing trains when I fell
in love with Veronica, raven haired
dancer. I advertised my Trix in Exchange
and Mart Swop For Record Player got some
bastard from East Anglia sending me an
electric 78 machine with a bunch of
10″ discs by Edmundo Ros. I tried
to make it spin my vinyl Yardbirds
put paperclips in the gyro blew
the mains got nothing but burning.
Veronica didn’t care for failure I
didn’t tell her. She left the
hope I sent her unread in the bushes.
My trains went round their perfect circles
in flat East Anglia. Turn the switch and they
spin. They never dance.
Trains don’t have to.