Use The Force, Luke by Mark Young

He slept badly. He had visions, accompanied by horrific noises – Lawrence Welk, polka bands, or perhaps animals being strangled, being stuck, having their throats cut. It was as if he had been kidnapped off the streets, then kept in a cell with walls that expanded & contracted, & wheezed, like being in the lungs of someone with emphysema.

Then he was walking into a hall, being lead towards a large throne. There were rows of accordions on both sides of him, but segregated, keys to the left, buttons to the right. More emphysemic noise as they jeered at him. The rhythm of straps being struck on lederhosened legs.

He stood before the throne. An old concertina sat there, connected to bottles of oxygen & mineral oils. "I am the Capo del tutti accordioni," it wheezed at him through a microphone implanted in one of its pleats. "You have been found guilty of uttering threats & imprecations against La Grande Famiglia. You will be punished." The hall erupted into a cacophony of animal noises.

In the morning he awoke. He felt different, metamorphosed somehow. He tried to get out of bed, succeeded, but only by falling from it. He moved towards the mirror. It was difficult to do, felt as if he was forcing someone else to move, that he was being gripped by some thing that surrounded him with an aura of false joviality. That hovered over him & sang, "Am I blue?"

He reached the mirror. & screamed at his reflection.

*****

Mark Young's most recent books are bricolage, from gradient books of Finland, The Chorus of the Sphinxes, from Moria Books in Chicago, & some more strange meteorites, from Meritage & i.e. Press, California / New York. A limited edition chapbook, A Few Geographies, was recently released by One Sentence Poems as the initial offering in their new range.