Mythville

Deconstruction of Arizona

Arizona, I don't recognize you anymore
Your creosote roots lie beneath
the perfect piles of McDonalds parking lots

Arizona, an unequal symmetry
of rubble piles collect
Ten thousand miles from here

Arizona, you are responsible ...
The middle-aged businessman
with expendable income
sweats for pleasure

Arizona, when can I stop sweating?

I swear in the heat like a pizza oven
Arizona, you are a car part store
but you got no glass to see through
and the beige collection
of air-conditioned caves
are conditioned to respond
in all the right meets wrong ways

The forests are in ashes
as the governor gapes
from a helicopter high
for the diversionary tactic
of the the unrael politic


Arizona, I can find no fluid,
no friend, nor car phone
to lean on
for company

By GPS,
you can find me in the living room,
darkly lit, with rayolight flashing
bible black blurbs

Arizona, not even Ginsberg
would gripe about your tripe,
so blurred with anonymity
hell hardly matters anymore

Arizona, my life's belonging
sare melting in a storage facility
and there are more things that beep
here than I can count

Arizona, you haven't hassled me for a while,
though I'm a loose cannon at the mousy mouth
roaring at the corporate big box store

The world is flooding, bleeding, burning
and all of the above
as you dry up and blow away

Arizona,
a kid almost got crushed in your parking lot
and I went to one of your social service buildings
and was amazed about how many homeless lurks
were sleeping in the lobby,
dreaming of Mississipi burning

Arizona, I can't get assistance at the cash register
and the mountains are closed, cats run free
and all the lizards are gone
Arizona, you are sucking in souls,
eating them, spitting them out,
at very low wages ...
of sin ... I suppose ...

Arizona,
I think you should battalion
the borders with snow
and big bad bars of soap

~ Paradise Valley,
Arizona

From, "Ginsberg Rolls Over,"
the latest book of poetry
by Douglas McDaniel