The Ranchero Chronicles: Victorville
by matt ronquillo
Dead birds flew through my windshield last fall
when they started letting cats into heaven.
I got out of the car with that
knife-shaped ice cube mold
and ran till I could wring my shirt to fill it.
There was blood all over the sidewalk after I borrowed Dairy Queen’s freezer.
My arms raised, dual-wielding Q-ray bracelets that
pulled down a giant metal animal I wouldn’t let go until it revealed to me
that we’re really a few billion miles above our own heads
transmitting into machines that don’t know it.
I broke the animal’s leg and did a brake-stand in the dirt,
watching it clamor and clang in my rear-view mirror which I had
glued to my back window because I don’t know how to face what’s coming,
even though I can see what’s gonna happen when it gets here.

0 thoughts on "The Ranchero Chronicles: Victorville"

  1. misener says:
    August 5, 2009 at 8:39 am

    This is pretty good. I love the surrealist imagery. I think the second stanza is what makes this piece worthwhile, I felt a peculiar, Philip K Dick-esque paranoia in there. The first and third stanzas are somewhat confusing, and I had to re-read them to draw some meaning out.
    Overall, I liked it. I love weird, cryptic poetry in the morning, when things are just coming into focus (w/ coffee) yet blurred softly by dreams.

  2. joecloyd says:
    August 5, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    I have to agree with Misener about the 2nd stanza. For me, specifically, it’s lines 9 and 10 that really stand above the rest. It’s like Vonnegut meets Kant. I think that it’d be interesting if the poet wrote a poem elaborating on these lines. Otherwise, except for the first few lines, this poem doesn’t really do anything for me.

  3. Matt Ronquillo says:
    August 5, 2009 at 5:51 pm

    Thank you both. Interesting you liked the second stanza over the other two. I thought it would be the other way around, but I’m glad some meaning was received.

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