Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

you know some badlands on route 23
weathered down, streaked in minerals
they leach color in the afternoon

pass through a gap, onto a flat
you can sit for hours, metallic breeze
watch the mounds deepen and dissolve
darken into sooty old mills, fallow concrete
watch heat simmer on fissured pavement
stain and ruin, sticker vines and rust

made the rust belt into a joystick, made a killing
the teetering mouse-click economy, house of cards
bottomless debt and banking ruse, the bogus wars
the screen will sort friend and foe, track their stock
we hemorrhaged for years, but held our own
you hate lies, the bigger the better
your negativity is pointless

you know some badlands in the redrust country
on a six-lane hangover in the jimson weed graffiti
shot-up factories, old hangars on a crumbled tarmac
down the vines from hanger nine the boys wired their war birds
wired bolts to mammoth pratt and whitneys, allison blocks
wiped oil from their brows, fed the screaming raptors
won the war, built roads and deco gas pumps
roadhouses, neon swoop, lots of factories.

the strip is everywhere
oil-slicked over a hundred rotted rail spurs
the desert rising rusted on peeled billboards, broken barstools
cracked formica, red vinyl booths, bacon grease and black joe
tangible, pre-digital grime, before physics fell to the microchips
music shinier, vibration more petrified, can’t put a finger on it

you know some badlands, a soft, diesel breeze
pleasant language of decay, but they were hell fire mills
a fiery furnace blanketed in fresh snow, soft bumps, toxic debris
gabled line houses on a starved steel sky, soft mortar and grunge
checkerboards of shot-out panes, wild dogs roaming literary tombs
detroit, youngstown, sometown mass-producing rust.

we built the damn things in factories moving around
like drunken walls at the zircon lounge, carburetors and pistons
cables and gaskets, gears and hoses hissing snake oil men
castle and crenellation, genesis and revelation.

we hauled rocks up the hill, rocks from the ground
built pyramids, cathedrals and pound for pound
the legends and bombs, got used to the sound.
everything fought itself; rain fought its only sun
and the roads went south, the deep south
river bed ghosts, soldiers clutching a song
someone had to haul those rocks
and it was damn hot

the shot glass sits on the bar
the color is almost pale purple now
the sunlight is still shining through
it from the lone ace window behind
that light frozen in the little shot glass
the sunlight caught there is whiskey gold
like tarnished Tarnations transcendent
the glass itself holds light from feelings
from another time, another wash down
of emotions that have no name
yet, there are quiescent recollections
of dark nights under a spilled jewel bag sky
giant Joshua trees reaching around the
core of the galaxy with shooters crossing
the sea of eternity all darkness with streaks
time lapsed photography memories
the glass remains there, when the world
ended, "time all crushed back into eternity"
like Crowley wrote, it was his last shot
and the world came to a halt, nothing
happened, the coyote outside yelped
the crow called the owl beamed hoot
the moon blinked like a Apache's eye
and the black tear almost fell
the little shot glass had just been emptied
and in that empty container had been
a poem of distilled spirits, a world of hurt
a reflection through its golden yellow fire water
like arrows shot from all directions in box canyon
like a silver dollar slapped on the counter
like the two-bit reflection in the grimy glory mirror
behind the dead bar, the bottles of all
shapes and shades stand silent, the desert outside
quite now, tumbleweeds frolic in the ghost breeze
other lights from other worlds zip past, dust
of gold glitters on the pale panorama
mesas jut in the far distance like reminders
the other lights indifferent or perhaps no
longer curious, zip zip zip

it is between the storms, the breaths
where the other lights compel and call
eternity in the naked land, the silent light
rise and fall of mountains, life spans of immortal
that silent, deep time, only sensed at its edge
rattling in star raked canyons, across plains
whole galaxies on the tips of flickering pins
on the firmament, can't place it all in space
holy reformations on the face, of the deep
and all the naked strata, timeless time
silent rivers and gone oceans, and that sun
your thoughts hurtling out with the big bang
we met a parallel lover, she didn't matter,
didn't do matter at all, we reached for her hand
and space inverted with a pop, heavens blew out
into the empty, into nothing or something like that,
and black space blackens, clutch onto something
the deep black desert sky ruined with its glitter
rock and sky in equilibrium, shooting, careening
a few ounces of quiet at the tip of space time
and the arid light, rare air, raw clarity
the timeless orbits, the ruins
the longsuffering rock,
the mesas beyond

I nice road trip through the multi-dimensional badlands .....200 years is an historical blip on the history radar screen.....a nice time capsule, mnaz

beautiful flow, mnaz!!!! I would like to listen to you reading that, record it someday!! maybe r-rabbit can help you!!

thank you, steve and arcadia...

seems like such a blip
the endless road trip, for example..
you gotta take it at some point