Americana

for Shea, may he be weird wherever he is

Open boxcar doors are no more picture frames
As the rolling hills and the strobe of faces are all shades of gray
The great dust clouds are locked up with cement and key
But the clouds of data are amassing and learning
The reactor looms over the treeline
And every falling star is the bomb
The Great Basin is withering under the shadow of holy Trinity
Where the desert was melted into glass
The familiarity of intersecting interstate gas station colonies
The desperate pleas from lonely little racists, scratched into bathroom plastic
What we must seem like, like ghosts
Passing like ghosts through a world of television mirrors and microwave color
A foul odor on the wind, to be bleached by the air conditioner

Joe Camel was Steve McQueen on the island of Dr. Moreau

5 am, 11-24-09, Murfreesboro, TN