Charles Fort’s Poltergeist Girls (1932)

“We are certain that there is some connection between poltergeists and puberty and that the mysteries of sex enter largely into their doings. And all the available evidence points to the fact that poltergeists prefer girl adolescents to boys - the ratio is about 95% to 5% respectively.”
          —Harry Price, “Can we Explain the Poltergeist?” (1945)

 

may one day be put to good              

 

in time of war             

a squad                     of                  poltergeist girls

 

could pick       a fleet

                                out of the      sea

                                                                 or

                                                                            sky

 

girls at the front!

 

“&

they are discussing      their usual        not very profound

           ↪        subjects

 

          | like casual misogyny |

 

alarm!             the enemy is                

 

          | the law of the father |

 

order:                     to the poltergeist girls

 

concentrate!

 

&

under

their chairs

they stick

 

  - their wads

   of chewing gum

 

            - | his genito-oral fixation |

 

                     a regiment bursts

                     /

                     into flames

 

                     reinforcements are smashed

         under cliffs

                     that are teleported

 

                     from the Rocky Mountains

 

                     the snatch

                     of Niagara Falls

 

| “She’s all states, and all princes I” |

 

            pours upon

            the battlefield

 

| vide. ‘The Mechanics of Fluids’ |

 

&

the poltergeist girls

reach

 

for their”

                                  polysemic

                                                         wads

 

& take             new aim                       ↘

 

 

{Fort, 1932}


Works cited

Fort, Charles. (1932). Wild Talents. New York: Claude Kendall.

Price, Harry. (1945). Poltergeist over England. London: Country Life.

 

 

Clay Thistleton

Clay Thistleton has previously appeared at Unlikely Stories as a character in John Bryan's epic Love has been Liquidated. Clay has taught creative writing and literary studies in universities, community colleges and not-for-profit organisations for almost two decades. He is the author of Noisesome Ghosts (Blart Books, 2018): an Elgin Award nominated collection of found poetry that investigates the phenomenon of ghosts and poltergeists that have the ability to speak or write. His current project, Never Mind the Saucers (Stranger Press, forthcoming), examines documented instances of alien-human sexual contact. Along with his son Dylan, Clay lives in New South Wales, Australia with a fluctuating number of feral cats.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Tuesday, October 18, 2016 - 23:45