Trance States: Memory, Apparitions, and the Movies in My Gut

By Geoff Peterson

And now we come to Trance States, the twenty-third book listed under Petersons Literature of Missing Persons:

Would anyone care to begin? If not, let me say its not often we encounter such a flat-footed character as the ghost lurking in the halls of this book. I cannot, in all good conscience, call it poetry, nor recommend it. We return it to its author with the suggestion that he relax his obsession with the mysterious Margot of his imagination.

Geoff Peterson

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546237648

Geoff Peterson

Born just after World War II, Peterson inherited his mother's nervous system and went on to memorize and perform poetry in a lyric vein for family and card parties. Raised Catholic, the boy learned the value of dreams, visions, and the soothing aspects of prayer in unison. He later earned degrees in Literature and Writing at Eastern Washington University, and served as poetry editor for Willow Springs Magazine. With the publication of his first novel in 1989, Peterson turned his back on mainstream publishing and has not looked back. Since 2007 he has published nearly thirty books of poetry and fiction. He lives in the Southwest and still gets around.

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© 2018 Geoff Peterson. All rights reserved.

photo credit:

Portrait of the Poet, Jackie Goldman

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/13/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-3765-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-3764-8 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Poets’ Hall

Under the Clock

Erie Playbook

Round Trip

Double Feature

The Killers

Night and the City

The Third Man

Armistice

Shrines

Ecce Margot

Cruisin’

At Chiricahua Summit

Notes to my Therapist after Canceling

1st Wave, Boomer

6th Grade

Going Home

the world after

Erie Cemetery

Making the Rounds

A Boy’s Confession

Casting Dolly Bruno

a sunlit room by the sea

Pure Gold

to Mark B. from the Desert

Where Are You

Nobel Laureate

Novena

Getting the Message

Camp Mystic

Garden of Eden

The Medium

Last Train to Medjugorje

Staying at Margot’s

The Fights

Mother of Nagging Disorders

Army Brat

Poet-Mensch

A Preface to Homer

Green Recruit

Shutting it Down

Bargains at Goodwill

Dream, 5 a.m.

Nights with Kitty

Paperbacks

When Company Came

Onset: Winter

Postscript

Maestra

Worship

Instructions from the Mother

Qi and Malignancy

Erie Boys

Ida Lupino, please

Snowy Deep

George Carlin’s Encore

Little Toot

Man of the West

After Repeated Viewings

Deep State

The Rich Girl

Mother Ship

The Cinephile

My Heroes

645 Downing Court

Actors Mother Fancied

Bulldog

Night Voyage

Jacqueline’s Lunacy

Grading Papers

Somewhere in the Night

Wrestling

Stray Bullets

This Is a Test

The Isthmus Between Silence & Despair

North Park Row

My Mission

Night Swim

The Lindberg Case

Yardbarker

Baldwin Building

On the Air

Notes

Acknowledgments

Afterward: The Literature of Missing Persons

I dedicate this to Ward & Jackie,

my sisters Karen & Susan and

to Jack, Kitty, Pete & Dave,

and to the people of Erie.

Everyone you loved refused to die in this town

before they died in this town.

—Hieu Minh Nguyen

Outbound

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person,

it wanders through waterless regions looking for

a resting place, but not finding any, it says, "I will

return to my house from which I came."

—Luke 11: 24

We don’t come from where we came from and

that’s why we live here. Erie is a parallel

universe.

—Mark Borczon

Poets’ Hall

Whatever happens to you, you put it on a page,

work it into a shape, cast it in a light.

—Denis Johnson

I’m sitting at the big window in a café watching girls in plaid skirts walk by twos into school after the first bell. A Catholic school, this town’s full of them. At least it used to be until the sex scandal broke and you started noticing older parishes shutting down or consolidating.

These days a man gets nostalgic for the playgrounds where he once played ball as a boy without being haunted by parents in the stands, back when there were no stands, but grass and a backstop and a hole where home plate used to be. Long afternoons of kids arguing balls & strikes and mothers calling from porches, and the sudden screech of tires braking for a ball in the street…

Right out of Andy Hardy, right? I’m a sucker for old movies. You see, I belonged to the last generation that could play as kids without a leash, when a boy could wander off the res and explore the infernal regions of the city—just be home for supper! Free-range kids, they’re