Devolution 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,
the angry sun awakes, a lion,
the wind pulls sacred smoke
around the window
and out the door
I scream into silence
Arizona, you are responsible ...
The middle-aged businessman
with expendable income
sweats for pleasure
and I feel
"pretty peppered"
by it all
Arizona, when can I stop swearing?
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
and asks the spotlight
to "move on"
The spotlight will not
"move on," the world
is watching
Arizona, I can find no fluid,
no friend, nor car phone
to lean on
for company ...
The wolf is watching
By GPS, without your bullets in fistfuls
you can find me in the living room,
darkly lit, with rayolight flashing
bible black blurbs
on non-violence
cursing your name
Arizona, not even Ginsberg
would gripe about your tripe,
so blurred with anonymity
hell hardly matters anymore
Arizona, my life's belongings
are melting in a storage facility
and there are more things that beep
here than I can count
my frozen assets
of the heart
Arizona, you haven't hassled me for a while,
though I'm a loose cannon at the mousy mouth
... The world is flooding, bleeding,
burning blinding in high winds from above
as you dry up and blow away
Arizona, heart patients are being denied,
a kid 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 Mississippi burning
Arizona, I can't get assistance at the cash register
and the mountains are closed, cats run free,
the lizards have disappeared,
to plot secret revenge
to assuage denial
Arizona, you are sucking in souls,
eating them, spitting them out,
at very low wages ...
of sin ... I suppose ...
and six are dead now,
six!
How long? How many more?
Arizona, I think you should
battalion the borders with snow
and big bad bars of soap,
painting you headless
telegraph cross with wires,
tin cans of TNT
and a sacrificed fox
~ Iowa City, Iowa
With slight adjustments
from, "Ginsberg Rolls Over,"
the latest book of poetry
by Douglas McDaniel
