Engine in Contention (Can't Get Far)

Sheriff Bill came down the hill

Said I'd burned my dollar bill

Which is why I can't get gas

to cross the great water

No I can't get far

with my engine in contention

Feeling bored

with the whine of my engine

Spinning those wheels

across that desert

for miles and miles

miles and miles

Dirt on the dash

Gotta a bunch of scratches

Just might explode

before it ups and crashes

I can't get far

with my engine in contention

No we can't get far

with our engines in contention

Tweeting my missives into the Trumpster dumpster

Tweeting my missiles into the endless pointless ether

I am wearing camouflage at the coffeehouse

and my Ford Exploder broke down

Just might need a llama, Dolly

When all is lost

and the gloss if off the posh

My Ford Exploder can't get off

and running

to save the girl upon the bridge

I can't get far

with my engine in contention

No we can't get far

with our engines in contention

I can't get far

with my engine in contention

No we can't get far

with our engines in contention

Editor's notes: The updated lyrics for the lone Bards of Mythville hit,

"Engine in Contention," produced by Martin "Tex" Barringer

Greyhound Bus Driver Blues

Run it like a prison ship,

the bus driver said

as if he had a whip

Been there, seen that

and he's not going

to take any crap

So pull up your pants

I know it's a fashion

but nobody wants

to see your ass

I got the Greyhound bus driver blues

those sunset on Route 66 Flagstaff blues

He got at the wheel shouting orders over the mic

like a prison ship, oh lordy lo, keep your head low

Why you gottta be like that?

The bus driver main ain't nobody

running his deal 

on a bad trip

You have drugs, 

well, you do them for fun

but the bus driver man 

is going to leave you

and he ain't gonna stop

in Cleveland or Idaho

Even if you wave and run

I got the Greyhound bus driver blues

those sunset on Route 66 Flagstaff blues

Flying off the wheel 

shouting orders over the mic

like a prison ship, but I an't no psycho 

Why you gottta be like that

on the ear blasting device, Oh!

So don't talk back

on the road to Vegas

the bus driver man don't

 have no taste for it

and he'll leave you

in Tortilla Flat

You don't wanna

see him coming

You get my grasp?

I got the Greyhound bus driver blues

those sunset on Route 66 Flagstaff blues

the got at the wheel shouting orders over the mic

like a prison ship, oh lordy lo, can I ride my bike 

why you gottta be like that?

Your Booming While I Am Busted Blues (Trickle Down Economics)

How do I catch the wave

when I can't get near the sea?

Your Reaganomics theory

Just isn't making cents for me

I went to my interview with Draco

to see how he feels

about his music that sucks blood right now

Turns out he's burned out

from looking around

for his trickle down

Looking around, looking around

Gotta get some trickle down

Gotta get gotta get gotta get

Gotta get some trickle down

His emptiness is the chaos on the keys

as he sees little Suzie swinging on teevee

She's got a mic, a producer with a cigar

Going to be an American Idol

Going to be about all she can be

Looking around, looking around

Gotta get some trickle down

Gotta get gotta get gotta get

Gotta get some trickle down

See the pawn of economic theory

See the prince of poverty

He's crawling on the carpet

sniffing for some green

Looking around, looking around

Gotta get some trickle down

Gotta get gotta get gotta get

Gotta get some trickle down

Down down down

Looking around, looking around

Gotta get some trickle down

Gotta get gotta get gotta get

Gotta get some trickle down

The Kachina's Son (Tyende)

The gravity of the red sun in Navajoland,

impatient in the evening sky, held me down

to sixty-five miles per hour. The darkness came

as the mesas turned to introversion, purple shadows,

to trucks passing trucks passing little beat up Pontiacs

& brights resisting the temptation for head-on collision. 

The blue-black raven gasped in the clouds 

for a little sweet warm morsel of hope 

of fresh road kill & the other fumes of promise. 

Children played by the long-straight roadside 

while mom & dad & uncle 

& Bennie pushed a new Ford 

toward the distance of the trading post's 

ghostly red gas light glow. 

Kayenta, Tyende, stood in a protracted war 

against the holy emptiness of the crossroads 

to Monument Valley, Dennehotso, Toe En Loc, 

against the bog in the hole where the animals fell, 

to the perennial stream emerging from a sandstone 

quarry, reaching toward Laguna Canyon, 

where flows concede themselves at Chinle Valley, 

then the San Juan River, which is ecstasy. 

Here, on the Redlands, the face gets long 

& hollowed out as the stone children 

at the roadside rest spot at Baby Rock. 

Here, I came into the presence of the Kachina's son. 

I could tell, I attest, I swear by the sudden drop 

in temperature in the flat-bed truck, 

the shadow passing through the back window, 

an intuitive kick of fear 

& the fall, like a cemetery stone chip, 

of a cassette tape to the floor. 

It happened where the plains became flat and the sunset, 

lost in the hot winds, had long past dropped 

into the curvature 

of the canyon cut into Skeleton Mesa. 

Later, after the Black Mesa coal elevator, 

the duende jumped off 

to claim its lonely home. 

I thought I saw a wolf 

in the rear view mirror.

From "Many Moons to Mythville: The Collected Road Poems," by Douglas McDaniel