Ambrosia Lake
I waved to a man
A bodyguard watching the remains
Paid by the hour, an overseer, a Forman
New nostalgia and advertised dystopia
Feeding temporal claim of a mountain
Long gone
Only vague recollections replayed in a drum of endless revolution
Thunderbird, wild turkeys, and sacred land
The grass grows green
Radioactive still
With blood dripping like sweat from the palms of our hands
And the mad cow mocks every passer…
Rio Grande Resources
Very far from the Rio Grande
Still a cosmic joke, but unkind at best
Polite, but never welcome
Another pipeline points at the peak
Covered in green rust
Blank stares at a dry river bank, and a loss for speech
What was lost in the choice to trust?
From the tops of many towers
to vats with cyanide
Water flows in pumps, a homestead
Very far from home
In between the canyon people, petrified in stone
Only shadows of the dead remain
Moments in time, spinning in circles
Yet, only the few are brave enough to turn their head
and even more enjoy the poison
Irradiated soil, green as the grass was before the agents in orange suits
And the mad cow mocks every passer
Poverty of poison
In the middle land
Abandoned mobile homes and children’s toys
Meth labs and isotopes, frozen in decay
226, 228, 230
Internecine, and the paper only buys more hell
Closed, chained like before, and forgotten away
Our mother of common abuse ponders the injustice
The need for bodyguards has expired
Only drugs, reclamation, and dirty water
And all the land they stand on is worn out and worthless
Inevitable projects
Over many country miles
Chaco’s for sale or slaughter
Just a tailor crying in the wind, when only seldom can hear
Time passes, and passes again
People curl like dead leaves, the shapes reminiscent of past transgressions
Crushed, another washed down memory in a can
Thrown out of a car window
Always on the move
Always craving more
And everything left for the future contained
In only two words:
Nukes and Budweiser
And the mad cow shouts at every passer
“Long time passing. Long time ago”