Too Many Horses (Why I Don't Drive)

Automobiles owned,

driven and reacted to,

starting with the one

that ran over my dog,

but not limited to,

includes this mortal list

of mechanical turmoil:

One 1965 Ford Mustang,

which my dad owned

as a shiny Great Society driver.

We put ice in the air conditioner

and it melted into cold air

from Texas to Arizona.

One green Oldsmobile stationwagon,

my mom's, which we drove from Dallas

to the far west corner of Wyoming

right at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius

into the denouement of a late 70s green bomb,

a handover in high school. Mark Hirte,

my so-called neighborhood friend,

put dog shit on my windshield once,

but I forgave him after he died

in a restaurant robbery.

I pass by all apparently random,

thoughtless acts. Not my job

to write people up for transitional,

indiscretions.

One highly efficient blue Toyota Corolla,

four-door, another hand me down,

which I drove to college in Arizona,

then to a grisly death toward a U2 show,

where the real streets have no name,

then got married, went off the edge

of the financial world. Oblivion bound,

oh, the vast emptiness I have found.

One hitchhike out of that desert,

home in somebody else's white truck,

the wind in our hair, grit in our teeth.

In other people's cars I get careless and free.

Though, at times, my century makes me

go for the brake on the passenger's side.

Hard to trust when your are co-commuting

on the drag strip of fools.

One series of turnover cars, gas guzzlers,

four-door, family friendly, snow weary,

lacerated dents over one wheel well,

chains coming apart in a storm,

the motor a drum of pain on the paint.

One red Nissan truck, a mighty steel stead,

drove me from shifty Phoenix to New England,

out of danger I, the rising Phoenix, out of danger,

into trouble, into a world of need.

One silver Datsun, sporty, or so I believed,

kept me well until the ghost in the machine,

the Kachina spirit of my dead mother,

blew a motor for lack of oil. Death to husk,

no oil to very little soil. Sold it for one-hundred

single dollar bills.

All the high-end hijinks

of Porches and Jags,

all rented to deceive me, so I bought

a Volkswagon Rabbit, with plates

that rang, "Live free or die!" May oui!

Part of my mapped-out plan for eternity.

Bought it for two hundred dollars

as an act of rebellion against

the smog-belching stink.

One Taurus, circa '94,

forty miles one way to work,

a lifetime to get back,

the stereo blasting a skin

to shield me from the world,

until the day that I,

a red bull in a colonial china shop,

got too many horses spinning

in my head.

Oh, the little hobbit hole

expectations of me.

One two-thousand dollar Honda Civic,

belching smoke because, truthfully,

I know nothing about engines,

only the high-beam up ahead.

Now I have to fix it. That's my responsibility.

The heart burns fuel, and it's expensive,

the engine wears down with each little decision,

each bump, each turn, cracking the crankcase,

chipping the paint around the chrome,

the crunch of each microbe

cracking the windshield

in a terrifying roar

only mites can hear,

the mirror getting dull,

dislodged, dangerously so.

Then the door handle breaks.

I mean, it's cheap stuff, this flesh,

The tires will eventually go flat, or worse,

and before you are there, here, or anywhere,

this thing, this life is just a shell of scars,

reminders of cautionary tales to tell.

An Official Statement from Rodrigo et Exciso Industries

We most humbly apologize

for the series of unfortunate events

leading to the catastrophic batch

of pancake mix products

used to sanctify your

national rituals

Although, for reasons

beyond our control,

as well as those we can,

we cannot fully divulge, recite,

enunciate or simply explain

those circumstances leading

to the incidents in question,

our hearts got out to the families

of those who experienced

death or discomfort or both

from the clearly overzealous

applications of our potions, mixes

and accessories

We also thank your priesthood

and supporting public officials

for their patience and continued

business

Those relationships mean everything

to us because Rodrigo et Exciso Industries

is, if nothing else, a people place

We are proud the many denominations

of your faith have chosen our pancake mix

and asundry gifts and necessary toggles,

brushes and rubs are so much a part

of your holy houses

Your worship means the world to us

As you can imagine

those behind the so-called

“pancake plot” have been

severely punished

You can trust us on that score

While, certainly, the regrettable fallout

over the unfortunate event has been

trying for both of our nations,

our methods against the miscreants

were for more painful, and, long-lasting

than those horrors felt, in the last hours

by their victims

We at Rodrigo et Exciso Industries

remain supremely satisfied

with the high quality of our

pancake mixtures, creams

and agents for fast relief

Working closely now

with your priests and personages

of high renown who have paid us,

handsomely,

for your patronage,

we have made great improvements

to our mixtures, creams, fixtures,

accessories and agents for fast belief,

as well as our security measures to ensure

the purity of our products and applications:

The Make-a-Mix Spirit Cleanse causes

no more moaning excess, rapid heart rates,

vomiting, heaves, sores

and so any further anxiety

is no longer necessary

Which means our products

can be used in your rituals

without any more tumult

or torture than is

absolutely necessary

No more stigma

No more stain

Blood is no longer

needed as a substitute

for milk, whiskey, or water

(depending on the denomination):

A graft of skin will do

And when it’s time

to put your ass in the air

to receive our golden spike,

there will be plenty of time

(and advanced notice)

for you to become mortal,

wounded, of plaster and still

Flat Earth Theory (A Round Table Discussion)

The fact is, the Earth is still. Stunned, in fact,

there is no wind, another than the big fan,

since your argument indicates nothing less

than the coming of another dark age

What can we ascertain of love?

A survival drive, a spark of a star

seeking a guarantee the light

will never die

What we don't know

is everything surrounding

the fractal of what we do

I cannot upload

fifty thousand years

of learning fire burns

and water cools

in a moment of you

closing your eyes

only to deny

the sun of Osiris

in the magical gauze

of the orb beyond the lid

You are quite insistent

but persistence is not proof,

only the tyranny of celestial skys

where the glint of light off a leaf,

relatively speaking

is more profound than Saturn

Hardly fits the pattern

of even the sly screen

we peer into

as our minds go

softer, glowing less,

in the shrunken universe

of the disembodied

voices of doubt

Departures (Don't Wake the Landlord)

The first time the mining boss

had so choked us off, after the ranchers shot our dog,

that we loaded up the truck and headed down the hill,

racing into hell for safety

See no evil in listening to my desert noir

Since I'm asking the Lord for safety

in the mercy of the miracle film score

Another time she said

I was possessed by the devil

and we escaped the seaport town

racing to hell for safety, again,

since your mind was gone

and I had to lose everything

to fill our days with broken glass

and the beads of trust

scattered in the sand by the sea

Then there was that time

you pissed off the landlord

Said you were leaving since

he couldn't keep the trains passing by

from shaking off the paints chips

and plaster from the ceilings and dingy walls

The sheriffs came from miles around

trying to figure out that money you'd found

We tried to get out of town without a sound

but the cat scittered up into the attic

in that long forgotten plains Iowa town

So we had to return the very next day

but where the cat had gone no one could say

Churned by the Mill the Hunter Takes His Aim

Pulling back on the bow

hidden from the self-imposed

exile from the world,

ground to a halt

the pillar and his salt,

feet burning

from the endless day

at the wheel

Now comes a song

etched in the dirty air,

the invisible wall

The typo for the point

about many brushes with death,

the mistakes to attest,

a thousand victories

over the orb,

a thousand losses,

and so he's even:

One kiss to come

to forget about her flesh,

or I can lose myself

in the hourly astronomies,

I guess

That an arrow finds its aim

once or two or three times

in a man's life,

is the star we do annoint

in the refracted light

of second sight

Tornado Food Towns (The Prophecy)

We navigated the great wide American plains

avoiding the chimerical swirl of the turbulence

by taking the back roads and byways

of the sky, running from the grief, you and I

With just enough gas to make it to

some cantaloupe country town

to sleep in a dirty motel room

as the sirens twisted on by

No we were not making good time,

instead killing the moments

and by the time we got to Sioux City,

you tried to kick your way

through the U-Haul door

in the madness of the memories

you never could embrace

The sky was red and green as my genetic memory

fed the agonized stress of the magical marble:

So hell, I was swirling, too

thinking of Dorothy knocked silly

by the door and the way

my grandfather's family

was annihilated in West Texas

This fear of storms is just a test, I guess

We ducked for the basement

and hoped for the best

The Dog Park (And Other Rules of Cyberspace)

You hurl out the door

sniffing for rabbits,

for the Alice in Wonderland hole,

dark in scent, stopping

to make your mark

in all of the usual places,

the parking lot covered

in candy wrappers,

the broken foolery of people

who never knew any better,

who when the black age broke

they hid from the spotlights

of the tigers hunting

for human flesh

of code that is their law

We'd get to the green embankment

and there would be a pause

and all I could think of was

getting to the ritual gate,

the tricky passage way,

the metal see-through bolt

we negotiated,

each man and animal

with their own interpretations

with their own explications

of the same light of the day

and then I would set you loose

and you would set me free

and you would run away

in that see-saw way of yours

while I sat on a bench,

had a smoke and then a prayer

Then would day the wagging whisperer

told me the multiplication tables were coming:

The organizers, the lawyers, the invisible watchers

The orange cones appeared first,

then yellow tape, spikes in the ground

mindless indicators, stunning our speech

into the silence, little hand held devices

saying you can walk here

but you can't walk there

but the shepherd

doesn't know how to read

and angels will do what angels will do

and this seemed funny to me

and my sense of anarchy,

as I shook my head,

laughing, mocking them,

living in the dream

and the nagging feeling

my brothers and sisters

would never get me,

delineated me, the vessel of

dualistic half empty

as you crossed the lines,

since dogs will do

what dogs will do

There was some beef

about grass,

the fenced-in yard

of social control,

and one day thinking

outside of the box,

looking in,

across the field the sprinklers

set the place on fire,

and all the beasts began to run and roar

and the guys with bald heads

leaned into one another,

pushing for a fight,

since the swirl of fangs

turned the blocked out space

into the wrestling cage:

Too many canine cannibals

scratching in their corners,

unyielding into the waste

of the iron-cut lawns,

the broken sprinkler heads,

the bashed in mesh of bent fences,

the spiritual need

to break through the bough

Nobody told the creek in the cave

it couldn't keep on running

or the wind to stream

through the mesh
or that amazing
radar nose of yours
giving it the sniff test