Urban's Noir

By Todd Jackson

This will be the final night of stars.
Curs from Paris to Macau applaud.
Soon the lady dons a dead peignoir.

 

Crystalline perfection's avatars,
Shed some grace upon us with a nod.
This will be the final night of stars.

 

Snapped between his teeth my Censor's bar.
This is not to say he's been declawed.
Soon the lady dons a dead peignoir.

 

Word by now has soaked the seminars,
“Galileo has evicted God!”
This will be the final night of stars.

 

Endless tragicomic abattoir,
Soiling her hem with common blood.
Soon the lady dons a dead peignor.

 

They'd been Soul's attentive registrars.
Awe one offered them was moral awe.
This will be the final night of stars.
Night the Lady dons a dead peignoir.

 

 

Todd Jackson's villanelles have recently been published in Snakeskin Poetry Ezine, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Circe's Cauldron (Biblioteca Alexandrina, 2020), and The Q Gallery: Art of the Quarantine. He holds an MA in English from Johns Hopkins University and lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.