All right, we're moving into the heavier stuff now, I think.
It's all in the back.
You'll just be bombarded toward the end,
but I'll try to allow time for it all to saturate.
This, I don't know whether it really does it,
but it expresses something.
I keep reading it all the time, because it's
my tribute to Arizona, and Charles Smith, and violence,
and the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin.
It used to be "Oh Killer, Who Do You Love," but I changed it
to "The Hitchhiker," which is better, I think.
"The Hitchhiker."
"The Arizona wind dries out my nostrils,
and the heat of the sidewalk burns my shoes
as a woman drives up slowly.
I get in, grinning at a face I do not like,
but I slide my arm across the top of the seat
and rest it lightly against her shoulder.
We turn off into the desert, and I reach inside my pocket
and touch the switchblade.
We stop.
And as she moves closer to me, my hands ache.
But somehow, I get the blade into her chest.
I think a song--
everybody needs somebody, everybody
needs somebody to love, as the black numerals
35 roll out of her right eye and side one small tear.
Laughing, I snap my fingers, rape, murder,
I got you in the sight of my gun.
I move off toward the street, my feet
press down in it, familiar with the hot soft asphalt
that caresses them.
The sun slips down into its cradle behind the mountains,
and it is hot, hotter than ever, and I like it."