Mugshots of Lesser Imps and Demons
This one appears regularly
under crescent moons,
sitting on rickety bridges,
sipping on a forty of menthol-flavored Colt-45.
However, sometimes, it will be found
wandering about the back roads,
looking for a ride into town.
Halfway there it will disappear.
This one sleeps in the trunk of a Gran Torino
with no wheels, abandoned in a vacant lot
behind an anarchist bookstore in Cleveland, OH.
Its favorite composer is Mahler.
Its favorite flower is the Marigold.
This one will occasionally call at odd hours,
asking for people who no longer live there.
However, it will insist on speaking to them anyway.
This one says nothing but hums, inanely,
and smells, faintly, of honeysuckle and blackpowder.
This one routinely appears at the scenes
of fallen elevators and speedboat wrecks,
eyes put out with BBs, grease fires
and accidents caused by running with scissors.
This one can often be heard cackling, madly,
late at night and lives, exclusively,
on a diet of pink champagne and fortune cookies.
This one will appear, mysteriously, in old photographs
with kings, presidents and various other dignitaries
(and, more often than not, wearing a ridiculous hat).
This one rises each night from the bottom of a pond
to pinch babies and steal car keys.
It’s official title is Sower of Discord.
This one lives under the stairs
in the boiler-room of an abandoned
insane asylum in Buffalo, NY.
With the proper rituals and offerings,
it has been known to provide alcohol for minors
and false identification for people on the lam.
This one rides through the storm-grey skies
of nightmares on the wings of Magpies
or clinging to the fur of house-flies
wafting on currents of cross-winds.
This one throws dice every Saturday night
in the basement of a half-way house for fallen angels.
His super-powers and origin are unknown.
All of them remain at-large.
None of them will ever give you a straight answer.
Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and countless love letters, never sent. He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection of poems is Fence Post Blues (River Dog Press, 2023). He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named Giuseppe, and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.
