Battleground in the Soul Wars

or

A poem, part of an even longer poem, in which our “hero” crosses the great Mississippi river between Saint Paul and Minneapolis in early September, 2008 after some days’ driving nonstop from New York and, while ruminating on the horrors of American driving culture, experiences an epic hallucination of America’s god(s) at war in this our weird, modern era. The hallucination reaches down, touches him, and levitates his vehicle over Prospect Park, past the University of Minnesota, above the IDS Tower (barely not crashing into it), and past even the deathskull Metrodome, to finally place him fifteen miles northwest on I-94 on the way to North Dakota. This takes place at 808PM in a quartz sunset.

None of this is noticed by anyone attending the Republican National Convention at that time.

Ahem.


You think that
These many hours
on the roads of sensual America
Would give you a sense
of the grandeur
of it all

Yet for me
Bleeding me
Tired me
Me me me
It’s been nonstop
Malls banks and church steeples
Pre-fab fantasies
And the holy light of gas
Station
Upon
Station
Upon
Station

Oh
And the flags
Some thousands
Each rammed
Into the Earth
in measure
Against the dark
Truth

Were I
To salute them all
My arm would
Fall off
And I would
Crash
Into a schoolbus
Full of Rockwell
Schoolboys
Boy scouts
On their way back
From camp
Winnamuckaruck
Fubar
Doodle Dandy

Flag after flag
Highway side
Jammed huge
And booming
From pancake
Homes
That kill us
Slowly
With sweet sauces
And so much butter

Or they’re
redwhitenblue
stuck
on bumpers
on dangerously driven cars
that the banks
still mostly own

And it’s the same
For you too
When you’re
Driving on
These
American roads
If you’ve been
So cursed
So privileged
So doomed

But let’s not
Let me be
Too cynical
Here

The highways are
After all
A military
installation

naturally

Jesus Fish
Cuts me
Off!!!

I spare
The finger
And breathe
Deep

We cannot know
Someone until
we see how they
behave
in traffic

And it has been said
Know Thyself

I’m the kind of man
Who breathes
Before shooting

I exit
And prepare
To cross
The river
From Saint Paul
To Minneapolis

But I digress

Yes

I was talking
About Highways
And America’s
god(s)

Behind that stupendous
Highway America
Is
Another America
Is
And behind that
Mall America
Is
Another America
and she’s still
not through

with me

You can keep
Highway America
I’m almost
Done with her

But not yet

Oh Lord
Glass bottle
King

Wellstone
Bumper sticker
Cuts me off!!!

Planet Earth
Is planet earth
And the Universe
A cold one

We got lucky

Well

I’m almost
To where
That bridge fell
Last summer

And must
detour

I am tired
So very tired
Of driving

I calculate
If I’d rented
This car
I would owe
A jillion dollars
In use – mileage

Look at the gas
Guzzling creeps
They’re all on phones
All on phones
Some of them
Read behind the wheel

But nowhere else
Strange

$710 dollars a week!
To rent
A death machine
From Hertz

hurts

No thanks
My car’s not
That
Erotic

Mine’s
Just
Getting
The
Job
Done

The clock reads
808
PM

Minneapolis
Here I come

Sun setting
The sky is a quartz
Crystal
Like unto
The one
They planted
In my skull

Lahoon
My boon
My bride
My groom
My daughter
My doom

Sinisteria
Wisteria
Sky

Lahoon
Is my
Inner

I

Driving
The clouds
Collapse
Into skulls
And bones
Quivering
Dancing bones
Of white
Gone purple
Gone white
Ivory
And violet
Do battle
Fight fight fight!

The American god(s)
At war

With themselves
With itself

With me

Truth and lies
Right and left
Death and life
Youth and death

Fight fight fight!

Football wet dreams
Quarterbacks in flux
Hot dog stands
Figurines, glass dolls
Children in adult bodies
With bank accounts
Some would kill for
Running amok

Sad old men
With nothing better to do
Than to police
A park
Or play
Some golf

Children raised
By the state

Children raised
By religious fanatics

Children raised
By patriotic millionaires

Children raised
By the Just Don’t Cares

One arm in the Sky
Two arms in the Sky

No beard
No smile
No God

Just god(s)
and the Sorcerer
has finally
re-arrived

The river
Below
A snake
Flowing toward
New Orleans

Everybody
On the take

The sky
Collapses

My orison
is a beat up
Volkswagen
Floating now
In the sky

The thing
In my skull
Begins
To glow

And I
Am transported

Over
Above
And beyond

And these words come:

“Light is fragile now in this place
Flickers pale beneath the sun’s
Descending grace
Till unabashed the Sorcerer King stands
And holds me
To him.
And takes me
Into his
craggy face.”

Westward
He throws me
With a flick
Of his bonewhite wrist.

And lets me see from high above,
for the first time
in my long days,
This god(s) War
For what it is:

“A dream

But no less dangerous
For being that

For dreams
Move men
However
Unreal
However
Obscene.

Dreams kill kings
And dreams kill queens.”

Dreams drive
the real.

He stares
He nods
He grins

And leaves me
On the road
again


Ahem.
Amen

Read the Lyric from the Beginning