Chains Across the Trees
for John Trudell
america’s totem is the hamburger
don’t look at me
look at tv
chains across the trees
generations bred on cheap meat
glass cars with flashy decals
x this z that magnum force for minute sight
you show me a town where the demons don’t lurk
lead heads zapped on crack
armed and ready to blow your face off
it’s just disease we get to see
in young bodies
don’t look at me
look at tv
chains across the trees
smell the burning hair
the leather straps that hold the ancient horn
stretch under the weight
of the desperate breath
of the few who still breathe
and walk with careful steps
away from the machine with steel teeth
don’t look at me
look at tv
chains across the trees
generations bred on cheap meat
and paper hats
and stars that never show up
in the night sky
or leave the mirror
stars that live in the magazine
haul piles of rags around on their backs
to show you what to look like
when you get there
when get where the stars live
in the magazines
don’t look at me
look at tv
chains across the trees
the sky is shaking
from the light beyond here
startled wings just before the fire
and spinning blades reach the nest
america’s totem is the hamburger
wrapped in the skins of beasts
who run from their homes
in the thick jungle
out into the open plain
to be picked off poached package up
replaced by the quiet cow grazing
until the water runs out
and the soil wears away
and there’s no place to go
don’t look me
look at tv
chains across the trees.
Cloak of Skin
surrounded and left alone
more marks that don’t connect
movies with the faces as big
as worlds of flesh in bright
light on the thin screen.
i don’t have anything to say
about it you should talk
to someone else like the wind
working up into a frenzy
in the trees bending and breaking
branches thrown to the ground
like a blanket made of sticks
the ceremonial fire is raging.
no one is watching
maybe a few are seeing it
in the corner of their eyes
the axis is crooked
the hole is getting bigger.
i am nothing
just the dream of becoming
in this cloak of skin
hear what I’m saying
the cloak of skin has a mouth
to talk with the shadows here
that won’t go away
until they see what happens
to it all
what happens to it all.
but I am nothing in this
cloak of skin dragged
through the streets
at the end of a rotting rope
unnoticed because the big screen
is showing how the faces should look
with the smiles riveted in place
put behind the glass
examined carefully thrown
in the heap like the rest
of the bulldozed bodies
still warm still quivering.
i am nothing
just this cloak of skin
with a mouth saying
don’t kill everything so soon.
while you load your rifles
while you slit a throat
while you fill the lung
with poison gas
ravage the earth to the bone
no not to the bone
incinerate the bones
to run the conveyor belt
pile up the goods for the ones
who traded in their souls
for a shoe shine.
don’t talk to me
about what you do
your words don’t mean anything
to me you think you are
someone because you have
something
a gold watch a gold car
a gold house
a gold chain around your neck
a gold shackle around your leg
a big smile your words
have no meaning to me
i am nothing
a cloak of skin
with a mouth saying
don’t kill everything
so soon.
