Corrugated like words
in the strangely mounded night,
catching us in your rough headlights,
your scorn like lead bullets,
you bought us all time.
Maybe if I had dengue fever
or was a hardshell unbeliever
I wouldn’t have given you a second thought–
with your hungry gypsy women
and your pointed shoes and your bells,
never pointing where true north is,
I would have let you pass by.
But out here in the desert
where the land is softly folded
your words from your new album suddenly cover the hills
like the illuminated manuscript of some mad saint
giving it a patina more refined
than the afternoon could manage on it’s own.
