Of Wildflowers on Plastic
The clipped wings of fireflies and flat circles of pine
No fairies to be found beneath the wilted corn
The sun low in sky as paper snowflakes shine
The invisible prize we chased, was torn
Soot cities hot-air-ballooned
Scum at the bottom of a reservoir
And mars himself leaned down and crooned
“What are you making for?”
Shredded rags on soft skin
Brick houses blown to smithereens
Are we really “savage beasts”?
I say more like broken machines
Farms and flambéed parking lots
Flies swarm to the painted concrete
An artificial grassland rots
Pavement now all obsolete
Those fields of wheat are just dead weight
Sunset burns blaze them black
Ashen landscapes state to state
The wildflowers are coming back
Bridges crying concrete- crumbling into dust
The poppies fade into the city of tears
Rivers of petrol, trails of cars
Like ants to the last crumb
In rust waited the Volkswagen
Pillow cushions filled with soil
Baby shoes, very worn
A merry-go-round- my hot hands recoil
Two backpacks piled like roly-polies
Huddling for what? Warmth? Protection?
Soft salt on my cheek, warm arms on fleece
As I left I felt a strange affection
Then came the land of dust, unclear
Capitalism cowboys, high noon
Glitchy jingles agitate my ear
I want to hear the moon
Yellow tape in the casino corner
Trampled, wreathed in overgrow
That cold smooth bison no longer bucks
There goes last of the buffalo
A stampede in my brain and I leave him
I and the armadillos
Can only hope that this scorch turns
A last glimpse of my artfully armored friends – I fall into
The nothingness of the Midwest
Warehouse after field after
Warehouse after lone crow’s nest
In a lonely house on a lonely rafter
Stained beige apron in a stained beige kitchen
Next to dusty highway sunflowers
I stole a ‘106 jeep which in
I raced the birds for hours
My tires screech, a wave of rock
Like a looking glass the dumps remain
Piles of trash, a garbage hawk
I feel the pain
Of 10 billion people slain by commercial commodities
Unnatural oddities
What did they want to be?
Before we were grilled over our own gas fireplace
Pioneer wagons once traveled here
I think I’m one of them
The ground I bled red
Powdered snow finds my face- no longer so far away
The mountains, at last I passed
I smell the air, petrichor
How do I remember that?
The scent of wetlands, a flooded floor
I was only 17, covered in sweat and leeches
All I have now
Is salt and blood
My gaze turns up to the redwoods
Running past the evergreens
Feet burnt raw and back cooked rare
Things live here I’ve never seen
My blood like a waterfall, why should I care?
Something shed to mark my passing
To the land of blackberry wine
Cause nothing here is everlasting
Not the cliffside, canyon, nor pine
I think the trees are calling me
Only as they called every other
But us woodpeckers took liking to telephone poles
In an atmospheric thunderstorm
Front my feet lays damp a fallen lark
He smiles at my presence
Upon grime and rot this scene lays dark
No morals and no lessons
How unmelancholy lays this scene
To the precious world below me
Not as tiny nor as serene
As photographs could show me
I need not shed a single tear
Like falling leaf I float
And at last I am truly happy
And when I die
Oh how I’ll die!
My heart soft earth, My breast a feast
Bones calcifying some perfect beast
My meat to fertilizer
I follow the flow of the crawdad creeks
No more yearning, No more burn
No more hazy summer weeks
Where the sun’s soft light did quickly turn
To smell of smoke and dingy bars
Sunset-kaleidoscopic rays
We drank prickly pear brandy ‘neath electric stars
But that never felt right anyways
The apocalypse and the absentee
Symptoms of time, two lovers touch
So therefore all there is must be
Owls and olms and palms and such
So neatly arranged in rows of trillion
This happening was no happenstance
Cold coal, hot bone and water vermillion
Steam engines, burning away at “chance”
All laid out before me
Was this our destiny?
What a beautiful view
Of wildflowers on plastic