On The Road

Johnny Snakeskin has an idea
has a mouthful of American broken towns
whiskey tumbles past those yellow rocks     in that shitty face
Johnny sits right up against the bar
at its runny weepy lights

highway coils to eat us
breathe when we're somewhere (this is somewhere!)
skinny neon yelling at the unfinis  hed universe
yell   at the squashed black bug of night
scurry   inside already!
piss   on the road and its critters

there's Johnny and that idea of his
float our mystical cloud over him
bring him our noisy rain
where'd you get that name, Johnny Snakeskin?
(the cloud palace is crawling with kids, just so you know)
what happens when you walk outside into 

that wild emptiness?
what then?

I still need to know all these years gone

"I have an idea," says Johnny
into the terrifying universe
up at our horny cloud
"you and me'll trade bodies
I'll make it so you don't make the mistakes I did"
so we did
it's an absurd thing

I don't know where I got this name.