Dreaming in Noir

Fernando Esteban Flores

January 27, 2022

Chapter One hundred seventy-eight

(for Suzanne Green)

Cruelty bashes you like a mace

Not a place that’s kind

Easier to fall in with thieves

Murderers terrorists the unkind

To be waylaid 

A long way from grace

Harder to find 

Ballast tottering 

On the edge

Of such a tenuous space

My friend Suzanne

Says there are still

Little crevices of magic

To be found in the world

I hold that thought

—a better lantern

Than light—

Like Diogenes

Searching for 

An honest human

I’m told he

Didn’t much care

For popular opinion

Or wealth

Thó I’m not from the school of cynics

I don’t trust Pandora’s Box

Somewhere a man is drowning

Let’s not wish him well

But get him the

Hell out of there

Fernando Esteban Flores is a native son of Tejas, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. Published three books of poetry: Ragged Borders, Red Accordion Blues, & BloodSongs available through Hijo del Sol Publishing. Published in multiple journals, reviews, newspapers and online sites. Selected in 2018-19 by the Department of Arts & Culture of the City of San Antonio, with support from Gemini Ink for his poem Song for America V (Yo Soy San Antonio) as one of 30 poems/poets to commemorate the City’s Tricentennial anniversary.