road song and annunciation

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       i dreamed i saw tom mcgrath last night
          plying over snow toward
                                 the collective of trees
       field mice whispering dynamite
          along the sudden sloping banks
                        of a half-frozen stream
         anarchic light
                  where water slow and bottomless
       throws a chill into the last century

           somewhere by a chainlink fence
    coat collars turned up talking below sleep
        pickets wait for the charge of dawn
      somewhere heading east a troop train
                   shuttles bodies toward the front
        windows full of faces
                  soft as loaves of bread
      somewhere on a highland green
   the chairman of consolidated blood and iron
       nods in passing to the chief counsel
                         of amalgamated money inc
        lines up his putt toward
                                 a cup of gold
    in sunlight that he sold short at 23 and 3/8
somewhere a president smooth
                                as a new car
    shows up wearing last year's
                                emperor's clothes
 smiling a river of lost coins invokes
        fellow citizens change
   provided with purchase only

 and behold here the archangel haywood
     opens the gates of the city of labor
   where in every city in every street
       the hosts are pounding
    their swords into hammers their
                       bombs into sickles
 and behold here the archangel debs
      standing on a railroad platform
  flanked by multitudes                 
                that span the green corn horizon
     breaks the seventh seal on the book
       of the living that bears
                            no bankers' names
   and behold the archangel tubman
        astride the shore of the potomac
     sounds the horn that sunders
                                all pharoahs' armies
          her eyes a light to guide all crossings
                       row the boat ashore
      and behold the archangels guevara
                                           and ibarurri
       rank and file among the choirs
                                        of early workers
                      huskers and wranglers
                packers and diggers
         singing "no pasarán" and
                                       "we shall be all"
        and behold the millions upon millions
                 gathered populating the red night
         of blue stars number beyond number
          winter plains of l.a. wheat fields
                                  of manhattan
            shining city of everywhere dakota

          i dreamed i saw tom mcgrath
walking on up the low rise
  toward a gap in the fence where
             a spring colt
                     canters off cattywampus
   the tack and yammer of a one-eyed crow
                                    from a lone pine
           hallooing down the small rain
  now at the top of the rise
                  he stops for a minute
           and turns and waves
   the light of the revolution which is
 a real place touches the plains
    the tide rises and falls on
the cockled shore of the inland sea
       and he lingers a little bit
    looking off ahead past the bend
                            in the open road