Santa Fe Motel 6
Motel 6
Overlooking
a stucco empire
Adobe,
rather, but less insidious than the kind which asks you if
It can
download a software update
Every damn
day.
Well,
slightly less.
It’s pretty,
just
A little
orchestrated for my tastes
Kids playing
in the parking lot
Sounds of
reality in strip mall
stripped
soul
America.
Fancy cars
whip by
Not just
fancy but clean; well-kept
The bright
yellow plates look handsome on them, exotic
Not just
garish and sad, like the rez dog running across
I-25; does
anyone even give a fuck?
Placitas,
Peralta, Prenumbro, Petaca
Que?
The ladies
at the front desk exchange a quick rapport
In Spanish;
a hint of some sort of mestizo localism
Or maybe
that’s just my dumb yuppie privileged
Cracker ass
Not
realizing they know I don’t mind
We can
afford to be open-minded.
Brown people
in hoodies
White people
in Patagonia
They all
shop at Trader Joe’s
And mourn
the everlasting sunset
Of the
atomic bomb
Los Alamos
is Shangri-La
Of particles
and particulars
The rest of
us might have figured out
Had we not
bought that turquoise necklace
Or indulged
in some locally made gelato.
Motel 6 has
seen it all
Oh yes.
Ground which
held a chief’s tepee, his daughter’s wedding night
In a
hallowed circle on red dead thinly spread earth
Turned over
into Spanish conquista-something we haven’t
Conquered
yet.
Finally
paved and offered to the somewhere-else bound travelers
Or maybe
just the fans
Of stucco
empires and sun-bleached fringes
Of places we
used to belong.
Motel 6,
Where the
internet doesn’t work
So $2.99 per
day in hand or otherwise
It’s time to
use your goddamn imagination
So where’s
the party at? The cool locals?
The artists?
Georgia
O’Keefe had it right
Give em’
landscapes
Some western
colors
Cheesy
fade-into-bland forever hollograms
But stick a
skull in it
A bleached
bone fragment
A reminder
that the earth we’ve turned over
Will in turn
overturn us.
Magdalena Mountains
You sat quietly along a plain interrupted, I
came to you and I
Barely knew myself, young and restless, needing rest, the
sun burned my mind
sun-burnt already
Thrust into the sharp, smart angles of blue
sky on granite,
where sagebrush ocean waves, crest and mumbles serenely
to cows and wildcats,
clueless antelope and magpies,
everything
unaccustomed to company, to change, the
desert knows
how to just fucking deal with it.
It touches the shimmering aspens, clinging
to hidden canyon walls.
Relentless summer sun sizzles, or is it winter, the valley
floor where mirages play
Along dusty, broken roads no one knows.
Few walk the long and lonely path of
forgotten cattle guards and Rez dreams
Only god and the sky are company, and even
he
Is content to watch from afar.
Dead grandeur reborn to sweep the ends of the
earth, and with but a moments thought
Comes back again.
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