The grand finale of our Summer 2016 issue is Luis Galindo‘s nefariously groovy poem “The Prince of Darkness is cool, like Toshiro Mifune.”

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I WAS DRIVING
a yellow Monte Carlo with a dark blue door
on the passenger side.
It had diamond tuck and roll interior
with eye of Horus buttons.
The prince of darkness asked me for a ride
to the corner store.
He was out of Kools and matches.
He wanted a Pepsi.
He looked like a Hispanic Toshiro Mifune.
He wore silver mirrored sunglasses,
a Foghat T-shirt,
black Levis and baby blue
snakeskin huaraches.

“Let’s roll, papi” he said
and tapped the blue door
with his fingernails,
long metallic grey talons.
I could hear him drumming along
to the song on the radio:
“The Cisco Kid,” by War.

“So what should I call you?” I asked.
“My name is Lucifer but they all call me Chato,”
he said in a low voice, sweet as raw honey.
He was sucking on a blue glow-in-the-dark lollipop,
it crackled and hissed when he took it out of his mouth.
His tongue, an electric eel, undulated and sparked.
He smiled like Conrad Veidt as he hummed.
His slick black hair was combed straight back, perfectly.
Behind the whites of his eyes were miniature angels
screaming and weeping, mouths agape
like mimes in an invisible box.
Their wings, ashen and fluttering like moths.
Tiny holy prisoners behind Chato’s eyes.

Continue reading “The Prince of Darkness is cool, like Toshiro Mifune” – Poetry by Luis Galindo →