Fun House

A Poem for All Us Traveling Ruins

Original Photography - Fountain Valley, CA Summerfest (2026)

fun house.
cathedral of loose rivets.
colossus of chipped enamel.

the painted woman in black heels
twenty feet tall and molting,
one blue eyelash crossing state lines,
one fingernail still parked in Missouri,
her smile unpacked and repacked so many seasons
it rattles when the wind gets inside it.

all afternoon the machinery sweats bolts.
the machinery sweats paint.
the machinery sweats old weather.

red weather.
yellow weather.
county fair weather.
parking lot popcorn weather.
dust weather.

somewhere beneath the murals,
another mural.
beneath that,
another.

a sedimentary kingdom of carnivals.
ferris wheel bones.
ghost cowboys.
lightbulbs extinct for forty years
still glowing faintly inside the metal
like trapped pieces of firework.

look at these magnificent traveling ruins.
their magnificent arthritis.
their magnificent patched lungs.

their magnificent collection of screws
acquired one emergency at a time.

the whole thing chugging with replacement parts.
every panel carrying the shape
of some previous panel.
every wound painted over.

the murals no longer agreeing
with themselves.
color abandoning the walls.
blue becoming orange.
orange becoming iron.

and the road.
always the road.
hidden inside the framework.
folded into every hinge.
miles and miles of interstate
sleeping inside the metal.

tomorrow they'll dismantle the moon.
stack the stars in a trailer.
remove the laughter with socket wrenches.
drive the entire hallucination onward.

leave only teeth marks in the grass,
where something briefly clung
to permanence.

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P.S. I’m so glad to be adding a new paid subscriber benefit starting this Friday! I was inspired by Mr. Duane Toops, and his Community Fabby-Doo folder, so I’ve made my own. I’ll be providing a link to the Where the Wild Things Art folder in the next paid subscriber video post. Collage papers, original photography, and a monthly digital collage download will be available.

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