The Snake Handlers

I pass a room regularly where no one lives
it sparks and crackles
with some old record player
and a Nazi urn not a bit dusty

The records play the burning of jazz
somewhere in Union Square
because brownshirts don't really rest
and the Snake Handler's oil dims rarely

A girl’s face stares from a flaking frame
pale as the moon after the Challenger blew
brushing her hair, singing for the quarters
To be plucked from the middleman's eyes.

I saw one leg Charlie whistling Dixie,
shambling with that damned flag.
Snake eye dominoes wriggling
from where Oedipus sought to end it.

And I saw
The ones who suck grease
from the Snake Handlers' fingers

Her black eyes spin with fruit seeds
her eyes move in the painting
Look close the crags turn in transit
an orchid fields' dreams about slaughter
and empty beds of bugs, violets, pistols...

Outside the window Dracula went bug eyed
Like a windmill of delirious insect eyes
Like full moons wet in a sick dog's eyes
Or starfish hatching from a fortune cookie
crippled and filled with small hands;
deh-deh-deja vu, remember this?
There's always death behind you

Here
The room’s stinking thirst for needles,
for dirtnaps
for poor men
almost knocks me out
each time
I pass

Dracula laughs,
the air all cracksmoke
and moonshine

Inside, at least tonight
a sacred heart is being chewed up
and spat against the wall;
I'd heard the sacristy burn
and a floral scent made my teeth
come out

It sounds a bit like Night of the Living Dead:
gas keys palmed by cannibals
who chew who end up with our
only house

and Dracula beats
whoever I can’t see
the whole night long