Mais oui, this is the drink of the Neudekade,
It reminds me, she continued,
of a Cow I know, who always says I’m the Beef!
I’ve got a friend your Vache would like,
and so might you, Odin reflected—A Long Haul Driver,
Yo Ochenta by name. Most people just call him Joe.
He plies the arid seas between Chicago and San Francisco.
in his beeg reeg named Cacafuego.
I’m about going to punch him in—ought to be headed
right about now for the Cafe Voracious:
Where Overeating is an Art not just a Habit
Here’s a monomonitor if you want to followem.
Through the cryogenic hiss of the jetspray came now
the microjittery waves of the platinum clad downlink—Hallo Joe!
“O doble” hier!
¡Oiga! ¿Schick Doggie, is that you?
Saluki dropped her monomonitor,
wrinkled the end of her nose and let out
the impressive length of her anima-rouge tongue.
And then she hid her face in the Tan Am magazine.
“O doble” frowned and signaled restraint—
Affirmative, Yo, we’re Going to Cheyenne—¿Qui we,
have you divided or what?—¡Pero no!
I just met a hunter. That’s it Joe, now we’re a Driver,
a Guard and a Hunter—we can take over el Mundo—
¡Claro, efectivamente! Effective when?—When
we get around to it—we’ll lay it out in Cheyenne, De paso,
Pero que paso en Wyo?—¿Qien sabe? An Interstate Runs Through It.
Lot to keep track of, glad you’re bringin a Hunter—Not
a tracker Joe, her nose is strictly ornamental. We are talken
High Resolution Eyes.
Es bueno. There’s a plenty to see—tráfico Rimbombante.
The huntress winked and shook her sumptuous ears.
As long as you’re getting technical
run him through das Businessenvironment—Who’s awake
and Who’s nod, What’s he seen and Where he’s been—
I80, that’s the route of the handcarts, Riverbed Alley
just one long Mainstrasse by the sound of it!
¿Hear that Yo? By the way, what’s your longitude?
I thought you’d never ask—The Pony Express Station,
sabe the ruins thereof, no longer smoldering,
out my “left-arm suntan window,” now I got the hammer down
through Gothenburg, home of the High Plains Goths,
a once warlike people reduced to turning over dry goods—
they could sack themselves if they had the nerve!
And on the shotgun side, overtaking a bedbug hauler:
Longitude One Hundred Degrees West of the Observatory,
and klimben.
Then Yo Ochenta shifted, supersmooth,
Like an Eel squirmen through a barrel o’ KY Jelly.
Phaethon’s Daughter
High Plane I-80—
“Give ’em enough coffee
and they’ll hang themselves.”
Stiff breeze combing the aluminium sky
over the River Πlatte and along the Great Transcendental;
Nebraska splayed out before us like a slab of beef
with the brakes on. The sky filled with the dicks
of little Arab boys raining down like Vienna Sausages—
That’s no translation.
Then, from a shaky laser speck on the horizon,
a swarm of Red and Black pokadot Crotchrockets
ratchets into focus and sweeps west toward the umbra
crawling to Omaha in the soft and fuzzy distance—
The lipstikt Sonsubishi, white scarves
trailing a wake of whorehouse perfume
the Gang of 31, harikari into the winde
sixty two wheels on Der Himmel Strasse
winding into The Truck Stops Here truckstop.
Phaëthon’s daughter Blurr straddles
her Nipponese beast, knees forward in the saddle
like a jockey bound for Hel
“I’ll never forgive Satan Bush
for carpet bombing the Garden of Eden—oh allah
I’m gonna cut off your dick
and feed it to the dogs
if you don’t strike back—
the world trade center is not enough!
“And all the fucking Brazillians
doing drive-bys on their own children
3 generations hunkered on rugs in store fronts
HAS GOT TO STOP!
Abdul Amir Al-Nburi
I salute you and your
Bowlegged, cross-eyed daughter!”
Having discharged her considerable disgust
for the moment Blurr runs her tongue
across her perfect and expensive teeth
inside her top leather glove
and opens the throttle on
her swarm of sonsubishi and continues
lip curled tighter than a slipknot
into the western winde.
The Grain Belt begins its routine, the spacestation
ritual of the wide spot in the road—a game of pool for the argoboys
or der bingo for the particular brainwash of catholics
and indians, ditto bowling for the methodists
and generic protestants
who pray to blow the pins away
down the ball bearing reality of the hardwood lane.
Saturday Night, lit by the tungsten moon
in its time, and witnessed by the rats of the elevators
and patrolled by the prairie dogs along the perifery.
From the cabin in the sky
spread out below the swept alcoa wing
sweeps the vast retrotransit where Mother earth bared
her breast of verdant wheatgrass in irrigated circles,
the irrigating nipples of agrabiz where I-80 skirts and elevates
the fierce little beams of westering traffic
through fields of broken shale
around the shoulders of broken terraces
and over hills of loess laid down
at 500 miles per hour off the face of the ice sheet—
It is quiet out there now—the taste of dog
raised on Friskies, a revolutionary food,
a predator’s windfall—the Spam of concocted dogs,
the moral equivalent of chicken soup. But
a dog like that is rarely let out, therefore
such an encounter is deep in the books.
Verisimilitude rules the Dog world. The scent of dog
permeates the cabin, Old Smokers, off the weed for years,
take it in, the original southern, State Narcotic.
Too big to ban: too bad to smoke.
—Denver, 15 Jan. 1995
Radicals on the Great Plain
The Drenchers advocate more water everywhere
whether by silver nitrate dispersal
or by drilling water mining.
They make no distinction between good and bad water
Main enemy: the Dredgers.
Both sexes, however, are reductionist.
The Drieden regard everything with dread,
awe or reverence.
They want to drop the bomb
just to get it over with.
Many members from southern Indiana.
The Dredgers.
They sprinkle flour over everything
and hope for the best.
Large membership from Michigan.
They all live in fear of Polly Decimal,
the queen of the digits.
The Tablewhackers, the spirit summoners
the Pot wallopers, the last of the franchise.
The Tree kickers, anti-ecologenes
who walk through the forest with chain sa
w tapes
turned on full vol.
The Hole Diggers, a truly lost and aimless
set of brethren related to
the Post setters and Wire stringers.
The head slappers, very indecisive cult.
Never know what to do and so forth.
The Grass hoppers, similar to the
Claim jumpers of the Western mountains,
now largely defunct
But some of their practices are being revived by
The Bankers.
The grass stompers, an alarmist sect related to
the Dirt Stompers, the Dirt Throwers, the Ground Hogs
and Large Land Owners
holding multiples of square miles
a lickspittle sect of
Land Jobbers & Land Grabbers
all under the dioceses of the Bankers.
The Cheese Pairers, a curious but hopeless sect
who hold that out of insignificance
will come greatness, material greatness,
that is, they deem misery and petty economizing
to be honorific.
They are greatly encouraged in this
by the masters of the cult,
the Bankers.
The Bankers
The Bankers live in banks
for the most part this is an advantage
In dry times they just dig deeper into their burroughs
In wet times they are safe
Unless the water,
should the drenchers’ prayers be answered,
become so inflated their holes fill in,
in which circumstance
they simply surface and offer them better terms.
Their relationship with God
compared to those who take charismatic chances
seems to be secure
He is rumored to be a holder
of a long-term mortgage.
The Ground Slappers, very short people.
Failing but hoping for the best
and the best will be anything
that isn’t definitely awful.
Usually they’re the bedrock of the community.
The Weed Pullers, and pullers of all kinds,
prominent among whom are the
the Milkweed Pullers, who are a form of disperser, too
if hapless evangelists.
A certain earnestness characterizes all their endeavors
and among whom
Thistle Grabbers and the Bullet Biters
are impetuous types.
Not to forget their poor brethren
the Knee Bangers and the Elbow Bangers
whose only purpose seems to be
to injure themselves
and who appear to have certain habits in common
with the Folsomites,
an economical organization known for doing anything.
And then there are the Double-Crossers.
an immense congregation who strive in vain
against all the rest, often successfully,
except against
the Bankers and the Whiskey tossers,
descendants of the true Ranchers, still among us
but radically unorganized.
FROM ROCKY MOUNTAIN SPINE
Montana & Montaner
For Greg Keeler
Big wind, big clouds
Big grass, big rain
Big Road—big load
Big railroad, big caboose
Elk jerky, deer jerky
Jerky de Moose
Big summer real-estate
Long winter outa state
Long water, deep wader
Big Mountain, Big Skiers
Downhill and loose
Deer jerky, elk jerky
Jerky de moose
Designer ranch in the hills
Not far from Big Timber
Incipient and authentic teepeers
Almost the Berserkers
Hook ups, Modern caboose
Cow jerky, turkey jerky
Jerky de goose
Air streamers, day dreamers
Schemers and land jobbers
New age camp robbers
Headed for the calaboose
Elk jerky, antelope jerky
Jerky de moose
Big Dipper bigger here
Little Dipper littler
Horizon infiniter and wider,
Forget the compass—no use
Wapiti jerky, prairie dog jerky
Jerky de moose.
Travel all day, still Montana
Get to Livingston I presume
The County Market and Gil’s got it
Gil can keep it—too obtuse
Trout jerky, salmon smokie
Jerky de moose.
Big Militias, pas delicious
Noxon suspicious
Over past Missoula, up above
Flathead, some of ’em dead
Called to their last tattoos
Llama jerky, guinea-hen jerky
Jerky de papoose
Big government: jerky extreme
Sharpshooter waste the dog
Shoot the mama in the door
Baby fall to the floor
Skillethandle Idaho—Megabuse.
Appaloosa jerky, sugarbeet jerky
Jerky de cayoose
Militia Man, Boze Man
Eyes on Ruby Ridge
Randy Weaver, ATF goons
Firepower the federal noose
Rainbow jerky, rattlesnake jerky
Jerky de mongoose
Nye county,
Pie-in-the-sky-county
Except cowpie, i.e.,
Pie in reverse—pie de nuke
Roulette jerky, sucker jerky
Jerky de puke
Good Dog, caretaker Dog
“Drivin’ the Boss’s Car”
(Hey! Ted or Jane in thar?)
Take’n a chance on a buffalo ranch
Beefalo jerky, merger jerky
Jerky de romance
Big oil, little oil
Stripper wells, swell strippers
Billings motel, bar fights from hell
think I’ll pack off to Jordan
Red pepper jerky,
Don’t-tread-on-me-jerky—
Jerky de beg yer pardon.
Autumn 1995
Denver Upbringing
Down by the Mile High Stadium
Against a car from Elway Motors
the Bikers work a Trucker over
Just to relieve their Denver tedium
I had a bike once—they took it away
They gave me back my knife
Only the other day, but I don’t care
I had a Denver upbringing
My mom was a crooked cop
My Daddy was a realestate creep
They never even went to bed
And they didn’t even sleep
My daddy said you crazy maniac
you’re never gonna wear that
Forty-five when I’m dead
You gonna drive your Grandma’s Pontiac—
That’s it, your one and only deal
She’s sick and she’s down in bed!
No way I said—I was outa there
Lit out to Loveland instead
My mom was a crooked cop
My Daddy was a realestate creep
They never even went to bed
And they didn’t even sleep
My mom was a crooked cop
And she sent me to jail
She stole from the county
Then she stole from the city
She sent my rings to Arvada
And she took my ruby buckle
She took my SS Special Luger
And she gave it to my uncle
When my mom got the drop
My whole life was a mess
I tore it apart in Loveland
Which is Denver’s bastardess
My mom was a crooked cop
M
y Daddy was a realestate creep
They never even went to bed
And they didn’t even sleep
Well you can have all my rings
And you can take my silver studs
And you can call me screwball
And you can steal my classy duds
But I’ve had a Denver Upbringing
And you can’t take that away from me
And you can’t steal my Freedom
Because I never ever had any.
FROM LANGUEDOC LANGUEDOC VARIORUM: A DEFENSE OF HERESY AND HERETICS
“My country, some few years before the civil wars did rage, was boiling hot with questions concerning the rights of dominion and the obedience due from subjects, the true forerunners of an approaching war . . .”
from Preface to Philosophical Rudiments,
Thomas Hobbes
“This leads to bank robberies, murders, decadence and corruption. When a Jew, a pure soul, eats an impure animal, it destroys his soul, and he becomes a jungle man, an evil animal . . . this causes people to leave the homeland and mixed marriages. It’s worse than Hitler. McDonald’s is contaminating all of Israel and all of the Jewish people.”