This book is dedicated to my late father, who first introduced me to poetry; to my mother, who taught me to love words; and to my dearest son, who taught me to embrace life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

edited by Jazno Francoeur

 

©2026 by Jazno Francoeur. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Book design by Jazno Francoeur

To view Hallucinations online, including deeper analysis of prosody, forms, and research, visit jaznoblog.wordpress.com.

 

ISBN TBA

Library of Congress Card Number: TBA

Table of Contents

I. Low Country
The Magic Blanket
of Laura Vicuña
Day of the Dead
Fall River at Midnight
Driving Through Salina
Burns, Kansas
Baptism
Ice Breaking
Cherryvale
Leadville
Alpenglow
Hollows
Infidelity
Dangerous Men
Kettenbiel
Chicken Hill
Rapture
Summer Camp
The Visitor
Fountain Street
The Visitation

II. High Ground
Graveyard Shift
Grandfather
The Enigma
Francoeur Electric
The Point Man
Happy Mountain
The Box
The Coroner’s Report
Black Widow
Cut Shop
The Road to Anandamarga
The Missouri Basin
Big Hill
Stone Prairie
Grassy Bald
Highway 84
I Will Arrive in Seattle
The Embrace
Fireweed
Christmas
Obscene Enough to Hold
Two Rosaries
The Vow
Offering
Dead Man’s Slide


III. Protocols
Honeymoon
The Arrangement
The Romantic
Monday Morning
Possibilities
For the Love of Three Cherries
A Walk at Kobe Terrace
September Villanelle
The Ascetic
The Empty House
Far From the Edges of a Conceit
Surrender

IV. Oracles
The Surface Holds
Lake Eola
The Song of Heraclitus
Leu Gardens
Femme Inspiratrice
The Key
Mona’s Dream
The Guide
Answer Key
Via Sacra
St. Catherine’s Head
Retrogradia Cruciata
Lupa Noctus
Hymnal
In Mylapore
Keisaku
Strangers in the Pyrenees
At Berjaya
The Wind Phone
The Bridge
The Rule
The Sum


V. Systems
Chaos Theory
Orders
Severance
The Cabal
The Documentarian
Who Watches the Watchers?
Babel
The Graveyard of Empires
The Acupuncturist
Eight Seconds in Nowata
A Primate’s Progress
De Facto Stranger
Requiem for Pluto
Requiem Aeternam
America, Forgive This
The Feed

VI. Mythos
Figurina Spiritinata
The First Coming
Cleobis and Biton
Filum Sicarii
After Carpeaux
Persephone in Autumn
She Will Arrive
In the Shadow of Bacchus
Cat House
The Wolf
The Performance Artist
The Last Picture Show


VII. Colloquies
The Rose
The Frolic Room
Do Not Go Quiet
Dionysus Spikes the Ball
The Gods Check Out
The Idea of Disorder at Key West
Enlightenment at
Twelve O’Clock
The Ballad of Hyacinthus
and Marsyas
The Courtesy of Ruin
Roofied in Roppongi
A Taste of Cedar
Shiduri’s By the Sea
Delirium Tremens
Le Rossignol
Taken, With a Twist
The Remedy
An American Primer
A Dash of Old Dominion
The Sparrow
Annus Horribilus
In Aeternum Exspecta
Eulogy for a Moose
Kurt Waldheim’s Lost Preamble

VIII. Diversions
L’affaire de M. Wickham
Territory
Manners
Twelfth Night Masquerade
The Demon Life
A Snake’s Progress
The Snake Eating Its Own Tale
Penelope in Flux
“Your Ego Keeps You Awake at Night”
“Forgive My Baroque Sensibility”
Poetry will Suffice

IX. Precedents
The Seal
The Forum
The Tribunal
The Threshold