We ride no horses any more
Nor stand in horse-drawn chariots
Or only rich folks do for diversion or movies
Back when there was such a thing as a Western
Maybe someday soon they’ll look back
And pity the benighted passengers
In our crappy five-seaters
Or our SUVs bloated for elephant hunting in the suburbs
Or our crossovers nor fish flesh nor fowl
Too big for safety too small for utility
Or our enormous pickups styled like sci-fi tanks
Stinkpot burners of aerosol distillates
Dropping charcoal like turds
Or powered from the local coal plant
Or bunker C number 6
Or the nuclear reactor vulnerable to weather and operator error
And where do you put its turdlike wastes
Imperishably active and fatal to life
Or a few lonely wind turbines
Reliant upon the instantaneous judgments
Of drivers with judgments no better than mine
Or worse if that’s even possible
And what must be the health effects
Of stressful left turns and lane changes
They used to have an animal glamor
Marlin and Mustang and Lynx and Bearcat
Competing with unintelligible letters and numbers
And the names of tourist destinations
Or heroic Challengers Chargers and Avengers
Everybody wanted to go fast daddy
Except the little old lady from Pasadena
Timidly attempting ingress to the freeway
Its already limited access furiously guarded
By young men who with sound and speed
Join the uniform parade of macho bullshit
So needy are they of attention
So ashamed are they of their incapacity
So lustful are they to strike fear in the citizenry
For warfare demands victory sieg heil
Howling at all hours
In bright noon
And roaring clamor to trouble the dead of night