The Road Up and The Road Down by Tim C. Haeg (1970-1999)

This road leads from

Ocean through

City and on across

Deserts bequeathed by

Tarantulas to Mormons

Flat oven expanses

Lacking even cacti

To accuse the furnace sky

This road ends in a

Forested range of decapitated mountains

Headless stumps oozing

Copper blood

Torsos gashed by

Strip mines and

Ski slopes

On this road

Cars wear American flags

Right above their exhaust pipes

Sillouettes seeking the North

Are conjured from

Roadside gloom by

Headlights

This is a road travelled by

Murderers and priests driving

Old Buicks and

Families hunting fossilized

Dinosaur footprints driving

Old Buicks and

Families hunting fossilized

Dinosaur footprints driving 

Minivans and

Gamblers driving

Any car you like and

Lone poets seeking lost

Goldmines of words

Driving moths and wasps

And memories

This road crosses

Rivers so toxic the

Fish no longer have

Scientific names

Winds over canyons so

Steep the sun only

Hits the bottom at

Absolute noon

This road paves over

Ten thousand miles of

Sacred Land

A black asphalt

Tombstone holding down

Spirits whose wrists

Burn to fold a tomahawk

Into the brittle neck

Of a glass daydream

This road stretches by

Kind tunnels and particles

Accelerator and fields of

Missiles tended by varsity

Team captains

Passes through

PAY BEFORE YOU PUMP

Gas stations where magnetic

Patterns imprinted on

Plastic cards summon the

Blood of the earth and

The flesh of the forest

This road swirls by

Power lines humming

Cancerous operas and

Used truck dealerships

This road basks in the

Shade of fiberglass dinosaurs

Standing vigil over

Bandit caves where

Billy the kid

Stashed his loot

And then bled to death

Dinosaurs brought to life

By the lingering radioactivity

Of thirty year old bomb tests

This road is home to

Hitchhikers bearing razors

Worshipping fury

Making sacrifices in

Dry gullies

Shabby motels

Roadside ditches

This road swims beneath

Oceans of extinct mega jaws

Winds among the roots of

Petrified trees where

Giant sloths hide from

Sabertooth tigers and

Cave bears and

Wolves

This road drives buffalo

Over cliffs and coyotes

Into burrows

To shiver with neurotic

Prairie dogs against

The rumble of tractors

The hiss of traffic

The KACHOOM KACHOOM

Of oil rigs

This road is a racetrack for

Mutant roaches heading West

and

Killer bees heading West

And

Alien visitors heading West

And

Hallucinations heading West

And

Tumble weeds

This road winds across

Motorcycle tracks made by

Possessed bikers

Carving messages to UFOS

In the sand

This road is

Children with dark eyes

Children with light eyes

Children with rainbow skin

This road is apocalypse

This road is nirvana

Burst from the brow of

Angels

This road is a temple

And a nightmare

This is America

As I remember it.