Thermostaphyllis, KS

Just so,
down, and down
southbound free range soil
Wagon-wheel driver, stop
looking at me with them frog-eyes
them eyelids clicking like bubbles.

Ants in gunpowder hills, beside the road
ascend and descend gilded ladders,
as molten silver twists down dark cavities
and form shimmering streams in little caves.
Walls of sand flank these chrome rivers,
speckled with shimmering Indian rubies.
Scarabs of antique emerald crack free
from century-old stones, deep below,
ascend to the dry soil.

Strains to hear it
follows him 'round
tick
In his yellow leather suitcase,
nestled next to stockings,
the canvas bag of yield.
tick
Silver star of the North.

O Susan, you haven't cried for me
because in me,
things are weighed in gold,
sold for bargains and measures,
bought with smiles and pleasures.

The wheels with radial tread roll on,
shake about the snake-eye die
in his wooden cup
beside his red garments
and his carpentry tools
and the canvas bag of yield.

Harbinger of beetles,
bringing up the well-suctioned mud cups
on the corrugated radial tread
sticking, getting stuck to the underside
clicking like bubbles, hissing like a roach
Susan's heart must behold her brooch.

"Them piles, them big piles down in Georgia bank
and they ain't made off with nothin' but dollars and cents..."
Those donations and stacks of gold bars over there,
just a country boy like me calls it decadence. 

But yeast in his form,
sesame seeds on the leather seat
beside him, ripped and torn
with rusty springs stabbing through
She wept under the covers, he remembers,
over frames of Jackson.

"How is that your face?
You must know I'm leaving
this place.
Throughout this year,
I've been suffering
in hot, crowded rooms,
listening to the hungry roar
of ugly, greedy men...
Needless to say,
I've lost my taste for it..."

Mandala blood rings
in her white gown
crop circles in the wheat dust.

Wagon comes about the crest of a hill
in blinding gold sunlight, and various insects
screech and rattle among the golden wheat fields
on either side of the jumping wooden vehicle.

Like the buzzing of a gramophone, that...
Looks around and sees, to incredulous fear,
thousands of flying insects in a terrific swarm
encroaching on their rear
shifting left and right, up and down,
morphing into sinister shapes in terrible synchrony.

The scarabs and locusts bear down on them,
with tremendous force and precise prejudice
thumping against the rotten wood like meteorites
bringing the bastion carriage to a halt.
'Tis like a thousand automobile engines
in roaring, deafening chorus.
What infernal plague is this?
From whose unholy will do they take command?
The book of Exodus hath been broken open
atop my emaciated mules
and my only wagon...

The hand of a merciful power seemed to swat them away
for silence surrounded the team and wagon
in receding waves, until all that could be heard
were the snorting mules and jingling reins.

More than defiant of his perception,
the dirty wagon driver rubbed his eyes,
shook his head, and looked again
at the image of an empty wagon seat,
rusty spring holding a slight vibration,
puncturing.