Gibraltar ... Gibraltar,
England versus Spain, once again,
the ages of empire returning, unlearning,
as the ancient superpowers retest
the waters of sanctioned, official
violence for fishing rights
Jesus, get me re-write
Jesus, get me a fish, fast,
faster ... Even the quickening
seasons slow now so get me
some low now, making the pie,
higher as the news adds
fuel to this fire:
Angry motors, tossing the boaters
who sink or swim or just run
round and round and round
the public squares, the cracking roads,
the sudden floods, the little ships
no longer safe in their harbors ...
The ghosts of conquistadors
choke through the thin veil breaking down
about the walk up the Peralta Trail,
the Dutchman, no longer lost,
and Geronimo up ahead,
noting the troops heading up
to his hidden cave
and dinosaurs ride on
the backs of Fred Flinstone
and Barney Rubble reads
Bam Bam the news
and the Washington Posts
go sour as they wait, just
one moment on superior
electronic machines
about how they, themselves
are in shock about being sold off
like slaves ...
A Navajo man gives me the big spooky
believing I owed him a dollar because
some spider woman runs on and rants
into marketplace America screaming
about yuppies without rubbers
and how Babe Ruth took the pill
and then took the Fifth, passing
the fifth plate on the diamond,
failing to excuse him for his disorders,
his sanctimonious shield, his lawyers,
his dogmas, Dharma, Shakespearean dramas,
coating the world in oil and trash
and pictures of food on boxes of cereal,
little boxes of store-bought lasagna
to be baked in the Bush, giving me
the evil eye, with just a hint
of personal superstition ...
My eyes grieve in the salts
cut from the Grand Canyon,
the sandstone all blown around
in the irradiated winds,
the acquifers getting sucked dry
by Big Blob Phoenix
as trains skip, accidentally
into the red rock canyons
of the east as I go "Toro!"
to the madness of the world,
weeping for what I wish
I couldn't feel, soapy clean,
greasy and real ...
