Grand romanticism collides with cerebral surrealism in “Long night on Lake Oblivion,” Luis Galindo‘s phosphorescent poem from our Winter 2016 issue.

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THE NIGHT, THE NIGHT
The long blue forever
Of the goddamned night
Flayed my heart wide open
With its hour-long blades.
It lay there butterflied down the center
Like an inside-out raven,
The bleeding love muscle
With its twisted dishrag ghosts
Galloping forth from my chest
Across the razor-fanged chasm
Of my indigo eggshell
Of a room
Clogging the silver gears
Of the moonlight’s machinery
With the bulky sinews
Of my nightmares
The cosmic clock jammed the brakes
At two twenty-three AM.
And as I waded in the murky waters
Of Lake Oblivion
Fishing for hope
With my inside-out heart
Baiting a golden hook
Crooning to lure salvation
From its platinum fortress
A headless angel hovered above me
Skywriting in phosphorescent
Green vapor

WAS IS NOT IS

I stumbled to the slippery shore
Of Lake Oblivion and drifted
Off to sleep
As the headless angel
Careened out of sight
Leaving an exclamation mark
Of Chernobyl green smoke
As it
Vanished.

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LUIS  GALINDO is a teaching artist for the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas teaching poetry and Shakespeare to local schoolchildren and young men in juvenile corrections.He also works as a professional theatre actor and Anime voice over artist. He’s been everything from a Texas pipeliner and offshore oil rig worker to a NYC bartender. Luis is the author of two collections of poetry and prose: Electric Rats in a Neon Gutter and the upcoming Grace/Fury. He believes in alchemy, rock and roll and the power of the word. He received an MFA in classical theatre performance from the university of Delaware Professional Theatre Training Program.