The Horseshoe Spread
Ten of Anvils
Past Influences
Engines of desire
roaming the lost highways
of muscular youth.
An agrestic collage
floating in a fishbowl.
The inversion fields
of an autodidactic summer
obsessed with guitar solos.
The pearl-handled revolver
prominently missing
from the oak mantel.
The Andalusian Dog, Major Arcana 12
Current Situation
The bewildered man
urges the palomino
up a burning slope
despite the handicap
of a thrown shoe.
Beneath a turgid moon
frenzied by outlaw pollen
the wings of a bird
echo in the corridors
of skyscraper dreams.
Traces of the alchemist
are found lingering
in the accidental streets
and forlorn curio bazaars
of a tourist mecca.
The Edwardian Lion, Major Arcana 23, Reversed
Future Avenues
Red veins in a yellow sclera.
A long tale
of the cartographer’s
miraculous fountain pen.
Extraordinary fireworks
in fields of feldspar and lace.
Nympholepsy discovered
in a reflective lake.
Proteus, Major Arcana, 9
Courses of Action
Enter with
the sun shot brilliance
of a polished knife.
Listen to plane crashes
on the acoustic gramophone.
Adjust the rearview mirror
until you see apothegms
swirling in your tailwind.
Swallow the chugging
freight train of your own
insistent verifications.
The Ten of Staves
Attitudes Of Others
The astronomer
on the far side of the moon
has never seen the Earth.
The aging ingénue
maintains her innocence
despite an immodest décolletage.
Your Dutch uncle
throws a surprise party
for a decadent valley.
The taxi driver
agrees to take you
to Lithuania.
The Knave of Clotted Cream, Minor Arcana
Obstacles To Overcome
The tautological torture
perambulated in
the calculation of π.
The borders of peripheral vision
as delimited by the right
hemisphere of the brain.
A towering bricolage
of torn ligaments
and distended limbs.
A Berkhausen dirigible,
circa 1937,
from the airfield at Dresden.
The Falling Sorcerer, Major Arcana 7, Reversed
Possible Outcomes
The archipelago of dream plastics
already ancient
in its pocked decay.
Outrageous success
in the arms of a statue.
Two griffins
resting couchant
before an empty throne.
Three spent shells
on the library carpet,
next to the broken flounder.
The hooves and bit
and the charred bones
of the burnt palomino.
A locomotive
arriving at the station
without its tender.
Whimsical viaducts.
(Appeared in Strange Horizons, 2011)
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