Dylan is a snake
His words hiss like pine in a fire
Slither off into the crowd
Like smoke at the end of a cigar
And echo
As if always coming from behind you.
He sinks his fangs into the back of your ankle
Poison beats like a drum and creeps up your arms
Your vision spirals
Searching for he center of the wheel
The eye of the storm
He devours the audience whole
With a mischievous smile
That says, “Good and Evil hold hands
Like brother and sister
Like roots into soil
And I will always know more about the holes in the ground
where Heaven and Hell leak into one another
Because that’s where I was raised
And I said it first”
And while his scales peel under the desert sun
And his rattle fades to a rustle under the leaves
His eyes remain
Aqua and black
Never blinking
An ancient indifference
Like two stolen gems.
He moves towards center stage
Pointing up to the commander in chief
Who sits crossed legged on a dirt floor
Playing his flute in a figure eight.
A slow moving wave
Moves from the bottom of Dylan’s toes
To the top of his white hat
Whispers through the steam holes in his harmonica
And slides off his thumb
The other hand waving free
Continuing the rigid sway
That danced asleep
And rose up from the ground.
Soon he will die there
Amidst the grains of melody
But like all good snakes he will hide his body
Where it cannot be found
Disappearing forever
Dylan will shed his last layer of skin.
Springsteen is a Billy Goat
his eyebrows jackknife like bobbing horns
as his nose wrinkles up in a fierce inhale.
His under bite muffles the gruff in his throat
and shows a bottom row of flat grounded down teeth
he jerks his neck around.
He carries with him the ass kicking
of a thousand factory workers
the heavy jaw of the veteran
and wears their colors proudly
in his shaggy hair
and Billy Goat beard
His head is disproportionately larger than his shoulders
which narrow down to a small solid frame
wiry ankles
and black leather hoofs
stammering to the top of a wobbly mountain
he winks.
He is grounded and building traction now
butting his face into the microphone
like it meets him halfway and bucks back
he sings as if in pain
interlocking with the down trodden, the horses and the mules
he pounds out their agony until it is thin enough to wear.
Cracking away at the weak spots in the fence
Springsteen churns
like a motor that can run full throttle
for four hours
like a Billy Goat
with a head made of steel.
Animals are social beings
But discarded as dispensable and inferior
Because anti-nature is glamorized and flaunted.
Humans increasingly distract themselves from nature
Which is like shrugging at the blood in your veins.
Animals are just as sophisticated and intelligent as humans
Only in different ways.
If anything they’re more intelligent
Because they know how to live sustainably.
They maintain their environment
If not improve upon it.
We piss in our own beds.
We cut our own wrists.
We wipe our asses with the rivers and then wonder why our water tastes like shit.
We as a people, as a civilization
As a stage in an evolutionary time line
A point in a bell curve
Are either at a stage of great infancy
Or great death
The way we muddle our words and soil ourselves.
A dial tone is beeping in the back of my head
like the phone’s been off the hook all day.
My ear drums are loosening around the edges
once a rawhide snare
then a canvas
a trampoline
a pillow
and then a plunge.
So all that I can hear is the far away distant rumor of my heart
like the city fires twinkling beyond the horizon
like a miniature leaf storm
playing Ring around the Rosie in the back fields
Lone night time drivers come and go like crashing waves.
I’m a thousand feet underwater
and a rudder swims in the distance.
The moon is playing tug of war with the sea
My grip is losing strength.
My senses die down around me
so that all I can hear is the ticking of my heart
like a pair of boots tumbling in the dryer in the basement.
My head is finally quiet enough
for my heart to speak its dreams.