sleep off, sweetness

forty miles behind a hearse
circling down the mountain,
i get a feeling i'm being watched---
cancer spreading to pay the cost,
you don't go hunting, you don't get lost,
heaven's gravy--secret sauce,
there's a forest, there's a cross!

nowhere is better than this,
i tell you, wearing raven hair,
canyon splendor! but can you tell her
when your switch is this?
'farewell adieu, kiss eh kiss---
tumbled upright, but i missed,
now i sleep off my sweetness."

slumber towers inferno, riots
mother earth, i turn for you,
a burrow driving the screw--you knew
my sweetness, you knew my touch
upwards once more on a crutch---
petals of the hand all crushed
in one moment's downward rush.