they walked the streets of Buckhead
through the sinister fluorescent indifference
of a nightmare carnival

their guide, Charon
an Irish Australian who had drunk so much bourbon
he carried his head under his arm

led them over disintegrating cobblestones
through the sexist chaos
and couldn't decide which circle of hell to guide his ferryboat to

scary women bared at them
their lipstickstreaked fangs
beneath the neon tapestries

the bartender nodded
and poured three level pints of warm blood
from a tap of bone

when Scott lit his cigarette
Dirk recoiled, hissing at the light of the struckmatch
drawing his cape across his chalkwhite countenance

William's eyelashes drooped
and his eyes were slivers
as he glared evilly at the undergraduate folksinger

Charon bumped the table
Glasses shattered and beer splashed across
Dirk who howled in a lupine baritone, goatee and fangs

Dirk Frank Frank Dirk one
Werewolfula Fradirk Difrank Dracuwolf
several throats much flesh for draining of glow

acolytes came crashing through
windows, skins drained pale, arms extended
Weredirk, subversive and obstreperous, devilishly eloquent, turned

and then with a wave of his arm,
Charon led them in a wake
down the drunken street

to the dance bar
where an undulating beat
twists the ghouls

a gigantic peppershaker
ground William to powder
in front of skeletons spinning discs

who grinned hiphop toothless
as ragged bandits stole eyeballs from the jar
Charon reenacted dreams he did not remember:

an imagined surfing experience
upon a glowing floor
among denizens of the Atlanta night

suddenly surrounded by buzzing yellowjackets
and bristling bulldogs riffing suddenly Charon
is set up by the Weredracdirk, all tooth and hair

burnlikeafallenember says Charon as
Vampirkwere falls stake through chest oh
Frankendracweredirk says, now I am surfing

yeah right baby you are melting into an
aqueous sea of righteous something in Melbourne
and we always say interface tasmanianlikewell

Dirk is oozing pitch
melting into
the floor

but
with
spirit.