From the dusty mesa her looming shadow grows
Hidden in the branches of the poison creosote.
She twines her spines up slowly towards the boiling sun,
And when I touched her skin, my fingers ran with blood.
In the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,
I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom.
A strange hunger haunted me, the looming shadows danced.
I fell down to the thorny brush and felt a trembling hand.
When the last light warms the rocks and the rattlesnakes unfold,
Mountain cats will come to drag away your bones.
Then rise with me forever across the silent sand,
And the stars will be your eyes and the wind will be my hands.
Your fan of golden hair oiled with rose and cinnamon
As your blood bloomed poppy red across your velvet coat
Your deep blue velvet coat
Yes, there in Montana prairie grass the Sioux shot Custer down
His red scarf tied, his black boots shined
How beautiful he looked to the flies, the happy kingdom of flies
Dear Custer there's a Wal-Mart now where once the grizzlies roamed
Mountains of hair spray and cowboy shirts and everyone has a gun
Everyone still has a gun
But high in the rafters above the lights, red finches, they hide their nests
And when our cars drive out of sight they sing symphonies across the night
In their forest of heating pipes
And out past the parking lot along the curb in the wilds of weed and trash
Great armies of the smallest ants fight battles for the glory of their queen
Such a tiny glorious queen
But even the empress of the ants for whom ten thousand fall
Makes not a sound beneath the blades of our great empire of lawns
How quiet is the empire of lawns
I didn't wrap my head in roses
I didn't run screaming down the street
I didn't drive off jagged cliffs
or dive in roaring seas
I broke no cage door open
I set no horses free
The day the girl at the drive-thru window
Softly smiled at me
actually I did nothing
As she handed me a large iced tea
An extra packet of ketchup
a small bag of onion rings
I didn't even smile back at her
just pulled into the street
Searching my rear view mirror
To catch her eyes on me
'cause there were cars behind me
and I had somewhere else to be
down the street I saw an old man
eating as he drove
running over empty cans
lying in the road
but the billboards near the highway
were full of singing birds
and the trees were blooming green
in their little squares of dirt
every dog chained in every yard
was howling with me
but, I didn't even smile back at her
I just pulled into the street
'cause there were cars behind me and
I had somewhere else to be
My ghost drives around with a bag of dead fish,
falling neutrinos drift through the trees.
He staggers and reels, runs up credit card bills
and clogs up the toilet with bottles of pills.
Here in the bipolar ward if you shower you get
a gold star, but I'm not going far till the
Haldol kicks in–until then, until then–
I'm strapped to this fucking twin bed and
I won't get any cookies or tea till I stop
quoting Nietzsche and brush my teeth and
comb my hair. Days pass slow in slippers
and robe, but my ghost still bangs on the
roof like John the Baptist in the rain
while the nurses play Crazy Eights.
We stopped for coffee in the Redwood forest.
Giant dripping leaves. Spoons of powdered cream.
I wanted to kiss you, but I wasn't sure how.
Like those indians lost in the rainforest,
forced to drag burning wood wherever they went.
They had all forgotten how to start a fire.
This is why people OD on pills and
jump from the Golden Gate Bridge.
Anything to feel weightless again.
Those poor, lost indians, when the
white men found them, most died of TB;
the rest went insane. In our motel room
you're drinking Slice and gin, reading
Moby Dick on the other bed. Remember
the first time we slept together?
You said it felt like when you learned to float.
Give me a swamp, a deep dark bog
Where I can lose my way in pools of slippery mud
Give me cold, cold rain; a cloud of stinging bugs
Deadly nightshade, poison oak; give me the wild, wild wood
The wild, the wild, wild, wild wood
We can dress in skins, wrap our feet in bark
And you can growl at me or hit me with a rock
When you want to say, "I love you" in the dark
And I will bark like a dog in your arms
In the wild, the wild, wild, wild wood