[Ned Balbo]

Carl, here you go. (It was originally in River Styx.)

Flight to Dreamland ~ Jane Satterfield

Prior to the late 1990’s, air controllers guided flights to Area 51
in Nevada under the code word “Dreamland.”


Forget them if you can—the dark areas in Dreamland.
Debunk ghost lights and sleepless nights in Dreamland.

The longest runway in the world is a dry lake bed.
Stealth planes and rumors cloud the sky in Dreamland.

Eyewitnesses report whooshing sounds and luminosity
while scanning skies for the mother ship in Dreamland.

Ancient Hindu writings describe flying craft; documents deny
that extraterrestrial ships are housed in Dreamland.

An airport in your dreams means arrival or departure:
But it’s just another non-existent terminal in Dreamland.

Though you can Google area coordinates, trespassing is a crime:
camouflaged guards in SUVs rove the perimeters of Dreamland.

Warhead testing requires secret sites, land to be relinquished for
20,000 years. No one farms the irradiated soil of Dreamland.

Sonic booms and mushroom clouds may be distracting, but
you’ll get nothing done if your head’s stuck in Dreamland.

Flip through Jane’s Defence Weekly to keep apprised of
each day’s plans for what the future holds in Dreamland.
 

[Ned Balbo]

Susan, I love your "Abandonment Issues" in Mezzo Cammin!

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks, Susan, for that lovely gift of yourself. Could it all be a misunderstanding? Unlikely, I suppose, but one can hope.

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks for Satterfield, Ned, and thanks to Tony for the hippest ghazal going. In this case, Tony, you’re serving yourself by serving me (a key principle of capitalism), but your book, like Nemo’s, will have to wait for an opening to the West. I can’t get any money out at the moment.