Hunter's Curse & Cure

follow these words like steps in the dark

think you get to play death like a drum

think this black dirt won't stick to you

brother you're drunk on the palmwine of terror 

here you're not dreaming when you dream 

of choking on dirt

of being beaten like a drum

of losing your mind on a hunt, here

laid out on the forest floor

tied down with blackened sheep's gut

tied down with black root & black rope

tied down till the poison drains

the poison that's gone deep

now rise, stir, move about

follow this voice to where it's darkest

to the old black cabin below, there

where the hunters do the healing:

see, you beat your head against a wall

see, what spills out is the god inside

To an Old Ford Bought at Auction

Ho! you say I got nothing to show for

Ho! you say I'm all broke & spent

Ho! just wait till you feel the hot breath

till you've been hit by the tailwind

of my road horse made of steel

watch me, I am the war god's driver

this engine runs on sparks from his forge

with the fire of his eyes for headlights I ride

& there is nothing that I do not see

I am the dagger shooting through enemy territory

I am the thief who slips by unseen

Ho! I ride this horse through your town by night

at daybreak all your finest women leave with me

Ho! if I stick around & strut the outskirts

it's to watch tough guys tremble at the sound of my wheels

wheels running with the charge of an army of horses, 200 strong 

wheels running with the charge of white lightning

wheels running across fields, wheels stripping the fields

what the farmer abandons I make my stomping ground

my horse grazes on blacktop, he's master of every dirt road

lives on offerings of gasoline & when he belches pastures burn

I am the fire spreading in the brush

I am the hunter who won't quit his prey

I am the pumping heart

with a hood tattooed in sunrays I give chase to the day

& after I ride with the white clouds & with the dark clouds bearing rain

I bring the night down with me