Sparkle Horse

Sparkle Horse
Crossed a river
Somewhere in South Dakota
And found something
That changed his life
Not for the better though.
He kept moving.
Outside Denver
He called
An old girlfriend
From a dive bar.
She wasn't selling
What he was trying to buy
So he drove all night
And ended up in Phoenix
Too tired to continue
But he had to try.
The next day
In New Mexico
Beside a creek
He couldn't cross
He laid down
Under a skinny tree
Next to an interesting rock
And didn't get up.
It's a good day to die
If there is
Such a day
He thought
Somewhat sadly.
Yet strangely
He felt a little better.
It's been something
He said
And closed his eyes.


Sparkle Horse
Is
A ceramic toy
A rock and roll band
A man
Who committed suicide.

The poem is made up.

Kate and Anna McGarrigle

At least
I was stoned

laying
on my couch

listening to
the saddest song

I'd ever heard
in the dark

waiting for
a phone call

I thought
at the time

might
save my life.

Husker Du

I was sitting in a small filthy room
an ugly dude with bad breath was asking me questions
I wouldn't have answered if I knew the answers
a cat was sleeping in the corner
in another room I heard people cheering and moaning
after I didn't respond to about ten of the questions
he and the cat left

a tape played the same song for an hour
I guess
I didn't have a watch
the song was fast and turned way up
I enjoyed it for awhile
after the tape ended the ugly dude and a bigger dude came into the room
they kicked my ass for twenty minutes
and threw me in a dark closet
I sat there
and thought about
my daughter
baseball
my wife's fried eggs and hash (I could almost but not quite smell it when I closed my black eyes)
and killing that mean little mother fucker if I ever get the chance
a couple days later they let me go
I suppose they realized I wasn't the guy they thought I was
and it was easier to let me go then kill me.

The Who

I'm almost
out of paper
and that's
a good thing
because it might
prevent me
from
writing something
that will
embarrass me
in the morning
I'm playing golf
with Billy
and I'll try
to kick
his ass
like he's been
kicking mine
for years
that flew
like a rocket
going straight
nowhere fast
I tried
to record
the rocket's
flight
but couldn't
because
my camera
malfunctioned
before
the rocket
exploded
I lost
my mind
and threw
my putter
into a pond
and had
to use
my two iron
for the rest
of the round
and the whole
damn scene
sounded like
a Who song
from the
opera about
the blind kid
who played
a mean game
of pinball
according to
Elton John
and I thought
a great
pinball player
has to be
the most
inane subject
for an opera
in the long
dubious history
of operas
anyway
I swung
a little
too hard
and watched
the ball
travel
twenty yards
farther than
it had any
right to
toward a
sucker pin
in the
middle
of nowhere
a giant roll
of paper
fell from
the sky
while I
followed
my ball
into a grove
of trees
I thought
maybe I should
write an opera
about the war
in Iraq
from the
perspective
of a chipmunk
with the heart
of a warrior
and the soul
of a philosopher
I found my ball
chipped to a foot
and walked to
the next tee
one down
with two
to play
knowing full well
Billy almost
always birdies
the eighteenth
when he needs to.

Kris Kristofferson

The major said
you wouldn't believe how fucking stupid I am


the night
Crazy Love and the Prophet came to town

Brown Deer lit a pipe
and asked the Major
if he wanted a hit
the Major declined


I'll see your stupidity and raise you a hundred percent
I said


the night
Crazy Love and the Prophet came to town

Billy The Kid
sang
Me And Bobby McGee

and the beer was warm
the whiskey was watered down
the toilet was broken
it was hot as hell I bet
Tom should have been there

the night
Crazy Love and the Prophet came to town
the going up was worth the coming down.

Ramblin' Jack

The thing
I've done
a lot

and don't
miss
the most

is hitchhiking

through the
hot and cold
canyons
of my core

and some other places too.

She didn't
stop.

She just
kept going
up I-17.

So
I sat
on a rock
and thought

oh well
it's only
temporary

and not
so
important.

For I was
undefeated
at the time

and still had
high hopes
for the good times
waiting

around
the bend

for me
to show up

buy
the dope

and sing
Billy The Kid.

Rick Nelson

What's the difference between Bob Dylan and Rick Nelson?
Not much
Except one's the best there ever was
And the other is really good
And
I
Could
Listen to either
All night
And way down into the morning.

It is kind of like the difference between
Hank Aaron
And Robin Yount
Or Bart Starr
And Steve McNair
Or Shakespeare
And Norman Mailer
Or Picasso
And Jackson Pollack.

Not that much
And if you don't believe me
Watch a few Super Bowls
Read Armies Of The Night
And Macbeth
Back to back
Go to a museum
And take a look
Or do the math
755
-
251
=
504
And that's more than I thought
But it doesn't matter
'Cause it's only Rock and Roll.

Kinks

The first time I saw the Kinks at the old decrepit Phoenix Coliseum (a surprisingly excellent place to see a concert) it took Pete and me five hours to hitchhike home.

We walked from the I-17 to Cave Creek Road down Bell.

All of a sudden about an hour after we turned left and headed north a car pulled over and we jumped in and thanked our lucky stars for the kindness of strangers once in awhile.

The only thing I had going for me was my father fired me the previous afternoon so I didn't have to work in the morning.

The cops woke me up about a half hour before my father showed up and said why aren't you at work?

You fired me, I said.
Get your ass in the truck.

The cops thought I robbed a store.

I didn't but I did have a quarter pound of home grown laying in a box on my porch.

They asked if they could look around.
I said no.

They left and an hour later I was wishing I was dead digging a long trench somewhere out in the desert for a house my dad was building.

The next time I saw the Kinks I also saw the Ramones.

After the show I took a cab to my father's second wife's mother's house after watching a girl take off her clothes in a broken building I found in an alley behind the coliseum.

The next morning my father took me to the airport and I flew to Columbus Georgia for jump school.

For the next three weeks I lived in a barracks with no doors, got yelled at a lot, did about ten thousand push-ups, read the Bell Jar, saw the movie First Blood, pulled a shit load of guard duty and if that doesn't prove life plays mean tricks on you nothing will.

Last night I heard Celluloid Heroes on the radio while I drove a crackhead home after waiting in a parking lot of a dive in the way-wrong part of town for ten minutes while he scored I read a couple poems.