Rider

Baby's ball is all blood red of flayed pigs

and silk soft little things

fill a house hung from strings

and I fly out on my silver, scissoring wings

(with the other sardines)

over cities of things mommies need --

light as gas, and half-assedly free,

like I was in nineteen ninety three.

Over the ruins like we're staggering apes.

What we get is what we take

in a split open place where a man can get kinged

in a palace of panic and flames

where nobody gets blamed by the tired,

and broke down, and beat. In sunken gardens

where there was a street.

West over water I rambled and paced,

and the blood river raced like the sweat down my face.

And the stadium roared. And the warriors embraced.

And the golden shore groaned

beneath the weight of my tastes. And I blazed

in the last orange hours of the day,

until the dust hazed and hid us away.

So, little baby, be brave.

I see your dad riding over the rise,

crashing his whole cavalcade through the crowd.

Watch them run on all sides.

And the neon white branches,

and the carrion fly

on a congressman's eye

I have wrapped up for you in some old autumn leaves,

and left under a rock out on Rockaway Beach,

beneath the trees.

I have laughed my best hiss to the whistling breeze.

There's a hole in my throat.

You can note my last wheeze if you need.

And then take hold of the rope

and down we scream.