tabula rasa redneck (1987)

we hit the interstate lethe early to get a jump
on all the traffic, thumbing our noses out the pequod
portholes at a sagging carload from
Friendly Manitoba, brown sedan blonde crewmates,
captain wearing hunting jacket& tie, scouring
clutter of roadsides for tracks of that great 
white worm,  there's a billboard
commanding MAGNIFY JESUS above dwindling
swindling snow left in patches glued to asphalt
w/oily carbohydrates,
neon cedar trees make a pinball game of drab
okie scenery, wounds of exposed roadside soil
bleed persimmon tears with snow melt,
sky etched jet delineates a tabula rasa horizon,
milky golden cattle graze, stretched over landscape,
their vacant stares at subsidy trucks
ease fears of recession,
speared into earth are Bodhisattva electrical towers,
reins of power lashed from dallas the emerald city,
a car on the right of way signals
to cut in, we let him, 
preying mantis highway lamps spy on us,
finally at the edge of OKC, dirty cemetary of
standard steel, a mounted jet guards the
greecian marble company's filth of antiquity,
over the cimmaron
and mud-wrenched middle ages, cancerous 
erosion of this biopsied slab of americana,
black hammers ram oil
from earth, blood of natives long sullied, 
pumped profits to zurich deny roadside cattle
CONCRETE TO GO
                 ---arbuckle moonbounce---
pave the fallen twigs
of ground flesh with a road with no view
                   *
inside stuckey's tourist trap you can git
a plastic redman scalp 
or a buffalo burger broiled in the spandex TeePee
by the diesel pump THREE FER A BUCK cashier's
styrofoamed smirk says resurrect thyself,
fields of beggar's lice rattle their tin cups,
ancient rows of trees planted for windbreaks 
lay cut for firewood, farmhouses dial 
up the thermostat and watch keen eyed hawks
watch the middle east for a mouse 
to scamper across the winnebagoed road
to success, bathed in squished 
grapes of wrath, boom town soil-etude,
horses drop dung
out their trailers under our wheels, 
a semi is painted with the slogan 
SALAD MAKES THE MEAL, past the exit for
gene autry OK, huge samurai towers
lasso clouds, a sign advises do not drive
into smoke &suddenly we're entering Love County
where a man seemingly hitch hikes
while still driving, his thumb
a-praying out the wind'er


1987
driving with dad
stillwater to dallas