sleep deprived five dozen hours
I am on a desert highway, without a nickel
my thumb begging for a ride which wouldn’t come
until dawn
but I don’t know all that dark is ahead;
I only know the night is moonless, the cedars
the pinyons on the far mesas are moving like mournful buffalo,
long gone except in my waking dream
on the road two eyes are all I see
green, sparkling as prisms of light in all that black,
electrified ***** of mushy matter, glowing in sockets
in a canine skull
I fear strange dogs
and other fanged beasts--I pray to a god
I do not know is there, imploring empty space
and dark matter for salvation
it comes when the lights of a diesel
birth, rear, and shrink the shadow of me
and allow my vexed eyes to see, an asphalt stream
with nary a scary creature but I
Nov 26, 2016
Nov 26, 2016 at 6:21 PM UTC
sleep deprived five dozen hours
I am on a desert highway, without a nickel
my thumb begging for a ride which wouldn’t come
until dawn
but I don’t know all that dark is ahead;
I only know the night is moonless, the cedars
the pinyons on the far mesas are moving like mournful buffalo,
long gone except in my waking dream
on the road two eyes are all I see
green, sparkling as prisms of light in all that black,
electrified ***** of mushy matter, glowing in sockets
in a canine skull
I fear strange dogs
and other fanged beasts--I pray to a god
I do not know is there, imploring empty space
and dark matter for salvation
it comes when the lights of a diesel
birth, rear, and shrink the shadow of me
and allow my vexed eyes to see, an asphalt stream
with nary a scary creature but I
Six miles south of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, August, 1968--based on last night's dream and an experience I had hitchhiking cross country in my youth
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