Flashpoems: Driving I-10,
I-25, I-40, I-70.


1.

Storm over the Rockies,
drop solo out of sawblade
clouds on I-70


mtns cut to
mesas


Buffalo Bill's buried still
atop Lookout Mtn, but
grave's gone into this tundra


of rain.


#


2.

Guy says: a mesa's wider
than it is tall; a butte's

taller than it is
wide. You

squeeze another 35 cents
unleaded into the tank.


#


3.

Gray thief fog
sneaks through Grand Junction,
tucks weedy lots
into its sack, even rabbits
feel safe
from the falcon.


#


4.

Last night
a cricket said
Nerdua, Neruda, Neruda.


#


5.

Trucks

dive

into

snow

squalls:

           pale


                       paler

                                   gone.


#


6.

Winter wheat

stalks bend: red

bows fiddle sky.


#


7.

Crows
on that telephone line: restless necklace black laughing
pearls.


#


8.

Magpie
pecking a snowbank:
poemless page &
spilled inkwell.


#


9.

Green River.

Fog shreds
in wind:

a pine steps forward,

and another.


#


10.


rust
car wreck
rattlegrass
clover
burrheads
dog bones
bottleglass
lizard

here's a poem:
pumpjacks.


#


11.


Stormclouds
upside down
Alps

rain drops
little Bavarians
climbing to the dirt.


#


12.

Words left on walls:

spider with a mountain skin

skin is always a monster

snake rainbow

take wing tiny baby


#


13.

Midnight.

     Her nipple
     hides
     the volcano.


#


14.


Billboards in this storm
advertise sorrow.


#


15.

Pickup trucks in snowstorms
amass gradual loads of white
haul winter 99 miles.


#


16.

Beau Jocque
and the Zydeco Hi-Rollers
Caifanes
Wall of Voodoo
Concrete Blonde
Cafe Tacuba
Catherine Wheel
Love & Rockets
Maldita Vecindad


#


17.

She next morning still
blooming on his fingers.


#


18.

Car cuts down the ramps colliding
head-on with each tomorrow: no
where in particular, man, you say
in the diner, just going


#


19.

anywhere, America, just going,
you know?


#


20.


one raindrop somersaults a butterfly



#


21.

Crows shit
into the Grand Canyon
nature lovers


#


22.

deer freeze

         car radio

                 passes


#


23.

A wedge of crying geese
rusts
in empty sky.


#





24.

October
signifying
October


#


25.

Glove caught in roadside tree
waves to pilgrims
who'll not return.



#


26.

coffee in a Kansas gas station
the wind
    big rigs
         nude magazines
looking everywhere for home


#


27.

Snaketown, Twilight Zone, Kansas. Old building behind a gas station. "6
Legged Steer" Alive! "5 Legged Cow." Dead cars and wrecks parked in
weeds across the front to lure wanderers in: looks like ghosts of Interstate midnight pulled up to spend $5 on the rattlesnake pits, the mutant animal zoo. Oakley, Kansas ground to powder by scudding black pumice of clouds. Wooden pits with chicken wire roofs give up the smell of rattles, snakes, skin, snakeshit, dead mice, poison. The man at the counter bangs on the wire: panicked sizzle of rattles rising, behind him rattlesnake heads, snake skin belts, snake teeth, snake head baseball caps, snakeskull belt buckles.
Out back, 6 legged steers, coyotes dreaming of the prairie, badgers pacing
concrete. Tornadoes vector in on us, and the man behind the counter
tells us these jokes: Yesterday we had a baby snake that broke out crying. Boo-hoo. Boo-hoo. You know why? because he broke


#

28.

his rattle! Hey!
It's Saturday. Do you know
what cows do
around here on Saturday
nights? Go
to the moo-
vies!


#


29.


her legs     converge     twin stems     one black     lily


#


30.


Snow
    flakes
        pat
          ter
             soft
                 as
                    eye
                       blinks

#


31.


If I remain
still,
I can taste
her breast.
So strange
her texture
creams my
tongue.


#


32.


Eyegames or Old Age:

     LUBE
     OIL &
     TUNEUP

becomes, in rainy light:

     LIVE
     GILA
     MONSTER


#


33.


Despairing of God, I came to the desert seeking saints.
The tongue of the tribe sleeping in my family
whispers spiny songs: chumampaco/place where they killed
the dogs: huirives/ bird: bacochibampo/ the water of the
serpents: bajeribampo/ the water of the lizards: cuirimpo/
the place of the drummers.

The freeway is the phrasebook
of the dreamers:
I will write--giostebareme.
Sing me a song--nech-che-biu-graia.
The sun is coming out--apo-po a-liey-ya.

Delepane. Good-bye.


#



34.

Good-bye.


#


35.

America's a page
of Kerouac: disjointed dharma poems in the brain
unspooling highways, paper rolls/black ink
black light/black coffee and doughnuts/black
berry jam on yer toast, honey/black sabbath

black magic/slap the black off you/black
eyed susans flouncing in ditches from here
to the Black Hills of sleeping South
Dakota, Crazy
Horse mtn flexing up
from the pine shadows, arm raised
into the sunrise as if the ghosts
of the tribes could rise: wheels
clickclack the fast lane like keys
of a wasted Underwood out of date
but typing, haunted, weeds fingering
the letters in a junkyard, some kind of
haiku: AM radio

sings its toilet paper hymns--cigarettes,
hamburgers, sports at ten till the hour,
conspiracies. Today
was tomorrow
yesterday. Today
was tomorrow
yesterday.


#


36.


loneliness
family far off
rainstorm


#


37.


My breath
throws clouds
down the road:
I follow.


#


38.

sips coffee in that window:
lone woman at sunrise


#





39.

while mockingbird
insults
the dawn


#


40.

white panties on the clothesline net my desire like a fish


#


41.

r/n/d/r/p/s



#


42.

she lets down her hair.   waterfall



#


43.

All summer
she brought me
gardens in
her skirt.


#


44.

Roadkill
armadillo:
ants load up, scurry
dismantling armor
mechanic chefs cart snippets
in a dilly.


#


45.

Earth asleep, winter
comes: snowflakes:
10 million eyelids.


#


46.

4 in the morning
and the Marlboro man's still smoking
by the dead gas pumps,
lights like comets
burning over his head.


#


47.

red Mustang
neon
sunflowers
Stuckey's
trading post
corn

here's a poem:
pumpjacks

nod me home.


#



48.


Delepane.

Ama-ni-huella, Dios tata itom Jicori.

Delepane,
         delepane,
                delepane.


Gone.

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