The Freeway to the Interior

Many of the men of old died on their travels…
– Matsuo Bashō

Time is pissed in torrents
Over the edge of the world
And into a plastic barrel
At the foot of the universe.

The weather is shit,
And the city looks as though
God wiped His ass in it.

See-through plastic bags mostly,
pastel shades: makes the desert
seem pixilated as it zooms past:

a beach without sea, not ochres
and browns, nor windblown dunes
and ridges as you'd imagine,

but tussocky, silty sand, that’s pale,
bilious green, significantly silica,
and respirable in rasping doses.

In the desert there is no recurrently
Flowing water—hence no Heraclitus:
You can step in the same wadi
Again and again and again.

by P. B. Lyons