The Drunkard’s Round Dance by Dana Dickerson

The circle sways
in and out
it’s a party
not a ritual

Indian rock ‘n’ roll thunders from huge speakers
Priests struggle beneath cedar crosses
kids wear Adidas Sambas
and neon glow sticks

We are a confused and mixed-up tribe
held together by sinew and whiskey
After the priests dance
a girl with coal black Farrah Fawcett hair gives a speech:
Crows are common
Indians are rare
now when the crows see an Indian
they say it is good luck

An Irishman leers at her Lakota breasts
Ghost dancers revive
men and women who’ve returned from the land of the dead
their eyes still clouded with visions of the other side
they cling to a sticky substance
which they call star-skin
The dancers chant:
the universe is the body
the planets are the blood
we are the cells racing through her

Some planets are barren, lifeless rocks
some are cold, gaseous balls of
gigantic gravitational pressure
The stars bind entire galaxies in their wake

****

Whiskey Dick drives a bus up a windy mountain road
the bus is reduced to a stick with clay wheels
all the passengers are alcoholics

Whiskey Dick asks: Are you there ancestors? I’ve been looking for you in the bottom of every bottle I can find, but you still won’t answer me. Who is there, if not you, for those of us without family, church or state?

Whiskey Dick says: God, ancestors, the living and the dead – it’s what we call business in this dark cave of fierce desire.

Dana Dickerson attended the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Evergreen State College for creative writing. His poetry appears in Volt and New Poets of the American West. He currently works and lives in Olympia.