Unlikely Books' first chapbook was Moonlight on Moloch: 20 Redneck Symphonies by Luke Buckham. Featuring color photographs by Kelly Hoffman, Moonlight on Moloch is an imagistic, surreal voyage into the method and madness of these very surreal times. Stark and blunt, but never cynical, Moonlight on Moloch explores the violence of America's current mental illness and offers no solution but the love of creativity.
an arsenal of jokes
Against the makers of world-wide death,
a stroke of paint, a trumpet's mournful blast
through ragged amplifier, an arsenal of jokes.
Hills ripple toward like ocean waves
a yellow outline around your frigid body—
on the ocean bright of green you float,
arrows of fire arcing toward you on the sky
like racing constellations, the orbits
casting off rings of red dust, every planet
on display. The dust from certain bombs
drifting in is an aphrodisiac, human forms
huddled together, humping for warmth.
This morning I licked concrete dust
out of my girlfriend's eyelids as we limboed
under the arcing fire, the hills rolling
in a broken tumult. Now if children come
the dust will find them out and stop their growth,
our house of pills is willingly plowed under.
Running over the spine of things
Inside the President's hollow head, a child burns their feet
as we all pile wood for the fire
under the golden calf of his dreams. A sky is rustling somewhere,
remembering good witches and their calloused fingers
running over the spine of things.
I watch hanging and beheadings on television,
while eating potato chips! A mouse scurrying
in the wall distracts me. If our violence
grows strong enough to push wholly through the earth,
then we'll be safe from its backlash.
Otherwise our violence will return to us.
The ground under our feet holds us to our target.
A sky rustles somewhere and a maker of spells
cries with bitter joy as we all come to join her.
Moonlight on Moloch is no longer for sale, but can be downloaded free.
