The vampires have abandoned
New Orleans and headed for Vegas.
Even the ghosts have left.
They have nothing or no one
To haunt. It is a city
Without borders, without shoulders,
In search of itself,
Its lost names and its people.
It is the blues,
Louisiana’s poor boy,
Nobody walks there anymore.
When the vampires trickle back,
When the ghosts return,
What will it be?
For now stick pins in it,
Sew it together,
Drink black coffee.
Listen to Peter Huggins read this poem:
The Bridge in Sarejevo
Gavrilo Princip waited
For Archduke Ferdinand
On the Latin Bridge.
Princip would turn himself
Into a weapon
That would lift the oppression
Of centuries and remove
The foreign occupiers
From his land.
The pistol in his pocket
Would free Serbia.
He would assassinate
The Archduke and Archduchess.
He would not even blink.
June brightened, then bloomed.
July thundered, and August
Arrived like an ultimatum.
Peter Huggins' books of poems are Necessary Acts (River City Publishing, 2004), Blue Angels (River City Publishing, 2001), and Hard Facts (Livingston Press/University of West Alabama, 1998); South is fothcoming. He is also the author of a picture book, Trosclair and the Alligator, which recently appeared on the PBS show Between the Lions, and a novel for younger readers, In the Company of Owls.
