Southwestern Dis-United States of Memory*

Piñon smoke and sagebrush, voice of New Mexico night driving into an Arizona dawn rising over dreaming pueblos, low-ridden plazas, kivas and ruined cities’ rubble traced and highlighted by sunlight, Anglo angling into Aztec toward Zuni over arid zones… A to Z to El Dorado; a voice covers the high hills with a dusting of snow—every word hangs in the notes of the song: music to fall apart to, breakdown to, hurling the soul  into the bottomless well of psychotic nostalgia: *música de cavanga, falling into the depths. Melody pushing to the threshold of a bar and leaving you there with cash in your pocket and no ride home. The warmth inside beckons—you step across as the song fills, swells, intoxicates, then excavates the wall of the dam until it collapses. The fatal mistake: you read too much into the lyrics of shallow love songs. The deathwish beast of despair arises, the flooded plains dazzle your eyes, the Indian girl smiles on the rim of the grand canyon, the tattooed cholo pulls a knife in the trailer park, the dark waters under the bridge murmur and surge with regret; el río de Las Animas, Durango CO, Aztec calligraphy on the wall: Las Cruces, NM; Clifton, Morenci, Globe, AZ: stepped pyramids of copper tailings, gang-warred walls in fallen barrios covered in Chicano hieroglyphics, the ruined huts of shepherds and cowboys, pit-house dwellings’ flaked arrowheads and pottery fragments scattered forever in the coyote laugh of desert dusk. Crepuscular colors on the names of mountain ranges: Santa Catalina, Sangre de Cristo, Sandia, each one a separate sunset delirium—then you ride through the night to the city of palm trees and the orange-lined boulevards of Heaven.

The singer herself grew old but her YouTubes live forever.

Tucumcari

Route 66 was lonely
Except for the two of us
We stopped and took some photos
If we ever make a CD
One of those photos will be on the cover of it
A bumpy road in the middle of nowhere
turned the red car brown
It was veterans day
And the romantic desert sunset
was interrupted by the wild turkey
We talked to it
It responded
We laughed
Back at the cow camp
we put longhorn burgers on the grill
Except for the sparks from the fire
it was completely silent
I've never felt such peace before
I've never seen such a black sky before
Despite the warning signs of diamondback rattlesnakes
I slept like a baby
And when I woke up
I caught the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen
And once again
It was interrupted by
the Wild Turkey

Gobble, gobble

The days move on as you have done.
You spoke so often of leaving, I had to have you gone.

Run little man, run away again.
It's what you know. That's a lifestyle? That's not a life.

Run little man, run to your teepee.
On the road to ruin... never again to see me.

I thought I was your friend. I was never your foe.
I loved you so dearly, you will never know.

Really your loss, you will someday discover - I was your friend truly, you'll never find another - Like me.

Dancing was hard for him. It was hard for me too. He wrapped his arms too tightly, I too lightly. I wanted to go this way, he that way. His steps were firm and purposeful, mine were loose and jiggled from place to place. He smiled while he danced. I took an air of solemnity. When he smiled it was like watching the sunset after a long hike. It was like being alone on a brown horse in the desert. It was like drinking Blue Sky soda by a creek engulfed in majestic mountains. It was a New Mexican smile. He said I was frowning. But I don’t frown. I found a certain kind of love in his eyes and a certain kind of love in my heart. We knew each other well. We knew each other like I know my favorite pair of shoes. I wear them everyday because I don’t have time to want to wear anything else. I went all over the place in those days and he was always there. The young women were always in tow. They thought he was beautiful and intelligent and strong and all the things they ever wanted in a man. He felt they were a little blind. He’s got values that’ll rip a man in two. His values ate me alive and I thought I wanted them. When we’re together it’s like two people who are together. Together like bread and cheese, not like locks and keys. We’re together but when we dance alone it’s better. His values made dancing hard.

Midnight back roads
Dark - insidious
Hungry for the intoxicated.
A monster comes out to
Prey on inebriated
Fellows.
Skiddings of tires,
Broken glass,
And red stains mark
Where the beast
Hunts
Road ****
A snack
and drivers
The main dish
The cycle is
Weekdays - innocents
Weekends - idiots