O Holy Moses wash,

O desert climb the lost sand monster

and watch the sun fall down and shiver

like an amber river

down the black shadow mountains,

Twenty Nine Palms is half past to Baghdad

and we've dropped it down a telephone pole:

let it roll, and crush his shoulder,

the bone's popping out

but, no, check my back, brother,

they're gonna keep me home another

time again and I wish

I could go with you, brother

and watch your back, your night,

your fright, throw it out the window,

and catch it like a whim

then shovel it in the roadside ditch

all addled with jerry-rigged switch blade

human jerky making devices

and alto vice for civil riots in London

and air plane pilots who forgot their hats,

forgot how to tap the breaks

and embrace the faces of our New

Orleans graveyards

all sable harsh wailing

like a fever: a hee-yawp,

a breath of the dry sun,

the death of a young son

and someone's baby born

is screaming like a gun

is bucking off his yoke

and chasing after no one--