multi-bug universe

teleporting through hazy wires

drawled-out AM radio Gulf-coast voices

east Texas town ironically named Darlinia

who'd wanna to be secretary of state?

who'd wanna export that Texas watermelonneck state of mind?

who’d wanna sign into “America’s lone star state”,

this outhouse of demented independence

where dreamy teens must leave home

better than swallowing hard every night alone

reaching out past cloudy cowgirl dreams

licking perfumed stamps all night at post office parking lots

while mailing out bridal invitations to New Orleans truckers

driving through bug splattered

crusted cracked glass

multi-winged interwoven butterfly collages,

an organic exactitude emerges out from my head

shucks, better to be a gas station attendant

checking strangers’ oil and water

scraping then swallowing one-way windshields of road kill death

soon, my multi-bug filtered red eyes

will get driven crazy

escaping from these rubber roads

from this dizzy demented atmosphere

1981