Today, I welcome you The Beyond...

Dodge Valley Oasis:
May 24, 2009

The locals can hear them.

It’s the weekend
and the warriors are out,
riding fast on esoteric two-lane highways
from Ramona to Julian,
to Temecula.

The saloon is waiting for them,
but the watering hole for wayward riders
is rapidly drying up in the desert;
so they drive faster now.

Above the bar in bold words
Greenback $1 bill speaks
to lethargic drinkers,
“Single white male
seeking single white
or latina female
with low self-esteem.
Call 925…”

All around ale spills from pewter mugs
as pretty girls run drinks and food
from kitchen to floor,
where music,
a generation old,
floats from the black velvet stage,
to sound stage,
to audience,
like radiation.

A drunk man makes a pass at one of the girls;
“Are you lactating?” he says
in a cigarette cackle.
“No!” she retorts,
eyeing her own grease stained blouse,
contemptuously.

And as tattoos
flutter like moths around pool table lights
Cougars are on the prowl for young boys
of lost innocence.

They’re all here tonight.

Out the window I can see a patrol car,
and the deputy writing a ticket
to the bewildered biker who stares at his
$20,000 dollars of mangled
juxtaposed
steel stallion and skid marks –
The unquestionable result
of hitting a turn and sand at 90 mph.

Mary brings another round of Bass
from behind the bar past Samantha,
who is having her customary pint,
and slides through the crowd
to a small group of men in leather and denim
all standing triumphant after a day’s ride.

The language and people are an amalgamation
of old engine oil run hard for a long time
and a glass of elderberry wine.

Outside a ‘For Sale’ sign hangs
despite good business,
and a line of trailers
headed for Anza-Borrego
streak by up the long curve to
The Summit,
The Ranch,
and Beyond.


By: Dillon Mullenix