Caught the vampire's failing smile,
cracked by teeth & venom,
wind-walking among the trees,
talking to the vipers
& the rats & the bats & the
men of the old bonetown.
Mr Mann had the right idea,
burn your books & get the hell outta Dodge.
Do not pass go & do not stop,
do NOT make out in the back of a beat-up old auto
parked next to the hypermarket on Dawn & Vine.
Mr Mann up front,
peering through the cracks in the windscreen,
the cracks in reality.
He can see the vampire's slow smile,
the shadows passing across the face of the TV screen,
& hear the old ghost voices,
the old radio voices, the 1949 voices.
Blood on leather,
black roots rising,
saliva on after-effects & after-echoes,
the apocalypse riders chasing the moon up the old dark valley,
the moon chasing the apocalypse riders right back
down the old dark valley to whatever hell they came from.
The vampires! The vampires!
Children beat hasty retreats,
hide under the boxes back of the laundromat,
not daring to peek
as black boots crunch gravel.
Mr Mann has the right surmise,
get outta the books & into guns,
get into heavy metal & iron drag,
get into lead & something magickal,
long forgotten lore & hoodoo voodoo
from years & years ago.
The vampire's smile turns awful yellow,
fades as the stars wheel & that tired old sun begins its ascent,
fades as the dawn breaks over the desert winds & cacti
& the lovers wake in their motel room in the back of beyond
& fumble for their stakes & knives & garlic balls.
Easy now for Mr Mann in the sun-kissed big blue.
Hunt it down in the tumbledowns & old desert towns.
Kick off the jams, break open the locks.
Hose it down with oil & strike a match.
Burn the reality right off that face
& that face right off reality
Splat on the sand. Grue on the sand. Black on the sand.
Mr Mann walking back to the autombile, back to happiness,
radio playing a little something from 92,
or was it 93, he really can't remember now.