© Alan Reade, 1992 and 2020
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      Danelle

      I feel so much better when I'm on the road;
        Bus stations tend to feel like stale
      Air as it leaves your lungs in sickness;
        And if I stall, it's just myself I fail.
      Who made these canyons? Red, thrown together
        Like toppled layer cakes in this desert land;
      Cacti sprout to stand guard at the palace
        While servant plants kneel down and fan;

      Are we royalty by the luck of being human?
        Moving snail-like on a seven percent
      Grade, uphill, or are we lowly
        Scorpions on rocks over hunger bent?
      I remember the road into Arroyo Seco
        And you saying tarantulas could jump as high
      As a rolled-down window on your mom's 280-Z;
        Even now I search roads for black dots! The sky
      Over the pavement is blue and forgiving;
        Like yesterday's rain now we're riveting, riveting down;
      Down through the canyons with no slowness, no finesse;
        With no regard for what we may ruin.

      Yes, we are all so needed by different things,
        Differences this bus will bring like rain
      Eastbound; like clouds wandering toward El Paso,
        And like my path across these arid plains.
      I had a dream about you last night, Danelle;
        I dreamed we were in love like a married pair;
      I dreamed we smiled into each other's eyes like kids,
        And that all injustice through that was made fair.
      We had a picnic in the desert with scorpion and cacti,
        On crags like this, with glasses of wine;
      Oh, I dreamed of the fun we used to share, Danelle,
        Of things washed away only by events and time,
            Events and time....

      I think there's a place to which the heart goes back
        Like a wandering traveler returning home;
      Where laughter flows like rivers, or wine from a carafe,
        Not forced, like guffaws at a boss's home.
      So, whatever people I do or do not meet,
        Whatever properties I do or do not use,
      How can I give to a world that is so needy and protective,
        When even the ashcans say "Refuse?"

      Maybe these questions are too long in coming,
        Like a bolt of hated but long-awaited Phoenix rain
      That spills and flows over onto the waterproofed canyons,
        Drenching all the crazy red rocks and plains.
      My dreams, like my life, are exciting and lonely;
        We move through touching, but always alone.
      That's why I love the feel of a bus rocking, swaying;
        Only sometimes I wish it would sway me back home;
                Ooh yeah...

      Sometimes I wish I was
        Home
      Sometimes I wish I was
        Home. Ooh yeah...
      Sometimes I wish I was
        Home.
      Sometimes I wish I was
            Home....


      Absolute Zero

      I thought I knew all about you,
      Knew how it all would be;
      For years I grew up seeing happy couples
      On prime-time color TV.
      So take me out to the desert--
      'Cause that's how I feel inside;
      I don't want anyone else to see this,
      Here on the screen's other side.

      And a tear falls from my eye
      While the ratings multiply.

      I fall to absolute zero--how low can you go?
      The light fades, and I wanted you to know
      I guess I've always been a dreamer--I dream of you;
      What are you going to put me through?
      So now I'm burning like a cathode for your touch;
      Oh I...I didn't know it would hurt this much.
      Take me to absolute zero; it's the lowest you can go--
      But how would they know, baby,
        How would they know?

      When I was little I defined who I was
      On TV women and men;
      They were my idols, they were my heroes:
      I aspired to be them.
      My first words were from Sesame Street;
      Cartoons taught science and invention;
      I modeled my life after Charlie's Angels:
      The first tool I knew was a gun.
      The first tool I knew was a gun.

      And the years TV nursed me
      Form my body's memory.

      And I'm at absolute zero, a figure at a screen,
      Wondering what my life would have been
      If all the demons and the heroes had really been real;
      If reality were set on a prime-time wheel--
      Meanwhile the glamour and the glitter have given way
      To survival at the end of each working day;
      So now my fingers at the keyboard type a string of prose--
      My life preserver
        In a sea of 1's and 0's.

      I thought I knew about the Universe
      Because I watched PBS;
      The Cosmos' heart explored in detail;
      I never had to leave my desk.
      And now I'm flat on my back in the desert,
      Staring up at the sky;
      The screen above doesn't have any borders--
      Nothing protects me from life.

      And the stars burn into me
      As I deny infinity.

      The temp is absolute zero out in outer space,
      But I've got one eye turned to this place,
      And I can see myself dancing down every street--
      Like a litter-filled breeze I shake my feet!
      I wonder, when I'm up in heaven, up on the shelf,
      Will I look down? Will I see myself?
      And so, is heaven up above me and hell down below?
      Heat rises, they say now, so what do they know? Oh,

      Images on screens don't make me feel;
      Pushbutton emotions, nothing is real.
      Will I be saved by religion or technology?
      A:\ecstacy; oh,
      Truth is an illusion--illusion is the rage;
      Who knows what's gonna happen in the Science Age?
      Truth is all around me, cold and dark,
      But I can feel heat in my heart.
      I'm at absolute zero, my chest laid bare,
      But I feel something beating there;
      I feel something beating there;
      I feel something;
      I feel something;
      I feel something beating there.




        I feel something.













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