American Breakdown

American Breakdown

(A Love Song)

It’s all about the road. That’s what they told

themselves: they said

                        one, where you are right now

is never enough, and two, a mystery’s a hell-

uva lot more attractive than a fact;

                                                                but it’s not

about the road at all (collection, please it’s not

all about the road)

and now we’re stuck out here in a yep a prison

of a Cadillac, and cicada interference is battling

with the night, and the country-music-station

drawl is slung low by our knees like a sleeping

rattlesnake, and our own faces are peering back

in at us – ours but different, distorted –

from three closed blocks of window (yez’m)

the nightmares of history are coming to get’em

and they’re scared of the cop-lights,

a girl and a boy and someone else back-seat

it’s not personal, (Number One) Sonny

we’re all in here now and I’m funny        how?

bursting but locked in to one fatal narrative

where a vast orange dawn with a yellow fringe

sets it all on fire,
a quien no sabe sun,

the concrete wall of a dead engine

The Dream…

                  pecked leather in the mornin

shatters into a black night of stars

stripped of all                                meanin

like,        Oh (say)          My (can)               God (you)

these honored dead                            Dances

With Ten Bears               (smiley face)

the good days of hunting are over

                                                         after all

tomorrow is           and           (smiley face)

                                                 I have            I have a