| SPINBUSTERS |
| Tails of the Patriarchy |
| The banned collection by L. Bowie Patches, Foozler Poet-in-Residence |
| Useta wave at strangers on the highway with one finger. What the fuck? I was a Professional, carried Triple-A. Then my pet dove died and I got relocated. This high coyote desert strands everybody in time. When I point Big Red down the asphalt, folks hurtling headon give the Chevy the nod, handflick off the wheel, spare howdy. It's still Earth, don't get ahead of me -- do your neighbor unto first is prime directive. In these badlands though, when you run outta gas, water, or luck, the brotherhood puts on reflector shades -- colorless, ageless, genderless, classless. All the blood is blue, and thanks we'll keep it thataway. Fourth Age training ground, look before you squat, where perfect and absolute might get you hurt bad and quick. What works here is the wink, the shrug, the scratched back. The land is unforgiving enough. Moral isolation and agenda worship play okay in swollen heartlands, intellectual oases. Out here the wind is a fist. Rock and sun demand nonacademic diversity. Eighty-five on the freeway, I'm at home curving time and space. Near Mountainair somebody hitched their Bronco to the opposite shoulder. Nobody for ever behind. I stopped in my lane, said, "What's up, bro?" The man was caressing a pistol, Hunter Thompson twin with a migraine and weedwhacker haircut, wrong-turned maybe after emceeing the pharmacist's convention in Vegas. |
| A rattler big around as my calf stretched next to him on the asphalt. "Jus killin a srr-nake," said the Good Doctor, his glance a moth and gone. Right neighborly I thought and on my way then POP POP he filed another field report on deadline. Doing somebody a favor by his account, and communing with reptiles to boot. Now you might not like the Doc's politics, but he knows his neighbors' habits and names. Do you? This badland is mighty big and we are not. It has power and we have five senses, a couple more if you're clearly desperate. Leave the stones unthrown and get busy sweeping the floor. Pretty soon. you stop looking at your nostrils in the rearview and start sniffing the wind. The clouds whisper sweet somethings long before the wallwater catches you arroyo-napping. Like this: I sing to the bluebirds each morning. They gather on my clothesline at nine-o-eight as if they bought tickets. They prefer Electric Light Orchestra. Why not? They shower royal feathers and hints of Merlin's spring, welcome mats for the thirsty. Ascension, pastlives, Pleiadians, shimmying down oak roots to the lowerworld? Been done. Unskin and send your soul sideways -- now that's the trick. I'm practising. Today I waved at every passing coach, at the cholla, at the dead black bug on Main Street's sidewalk. Like every other nut, I stumble around mumbling and gesticulating. There 'ain't no airport, but who knows, something might want to land. Yo, I'm a waving fool, gathering the embers of bridges, signing creation�s hidden name. |
| "Communing with Reptiles" |
| Part 1 |
| Part 2 |
| Taking Back the WhupStick |
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