High Desert Sutra
I rode a carousel with allen
it led me here dropping me off the unicorn in the
city of tall rocks, not broad shoulders,
far from the urbane glistening lovemusk of
streets cars subways
in the cactus and sagebrush I look for
my own sweat tasting the wind
seeking the visions, dying, just aching and longing
stand staring into the night
on a quest to find the
lost pink nipples of civilization.
where is jack now, or billy?
the sky never darkens
pinpoints of stars in the wornout denim of the firmament
yea and I speak unto you,
you, o cactus, o kit fox, o beaded lizard, o antelope
I become coyote, the renegade trickster pimp slave of the universe.
use me up and call me done, call me yours,
a vessel, a vassal, dying to please the muse,
hoping to find myself in the baked out scrub of
red pink orange blue
the earth stinks of sage
the gods implore me to forget them, me,
unready with their message. I
balance with pan on the rocky mesas,
washout of arroyo floods like the afterbirth of mother nature
day after day after day and
pan says, shut your mouth, brother, shut your eyes,
listen to the king of spunk and madness tell you how it is, brother, and become one with
this rock here,
the one shaped like the way you loved your father,
bask in the distance from the ocean.
no million miles of water here, brother,
pan says, and he smiles
festooned with deity
all knowing
through the stench of truth.
April 2009, RTP
