The belching ghost-wail of the locomotive
trailing her rattling wooden tail
into the jazz-band sunset. . . .
The mountains in a row
set pinnacles of ferocious isolation
under the alien hot heaven
Vegetable cripples of drought
thrust up the parching appeal
cracking open the earth
stump-fingered cacti
and hunch-back palm trees
belabour the cinders of twilight. . . .