Poet Laureate of the City of Scottsdale, AZ, USA
(for Geoffrey)

How do they treat their poets down in Scottsdale Arizona?
Do they listen?
Do they give 'em drink and drive 'em mad?
Do they wheel 'em into polished rooms
And watch scorpions crawl off their tongues?
Then applaud, "well done
Here's your tea and biscuits?"

Well, this here is no Drugstore Englishman.
This man learned the lines of snake-shadow.
Walked solitary miles under the sun,
Fortydayandfortynights,
Sat on stones below the river.
Picked old broken teeth from the sand
Rattled them in his fist,
Scattered them down Main Street,
Told the truth by them.

Look to where he points his stick.
Heed his fogs snagged on cactus spines
Deserts spit few diamonds out --
Goddamnlimey, Natureman,
Sonoran prophet of the human heart.
by Paul Evans, 5 February, 2000