Exile
Zebulon Whatley
I was spat cold and blameless
Into endless white light
Screaming and blood-soaked
Like a murder at night
Born into creation
Like a maggot in meat
I washed up in Sacramento
Where for a while life was sweet
They say that I broke the law
But I’ve never done wrong
So I fled like a lover
From a bitter torch song
I struck out toward the wastes
Knowing I’d never return
The cops barred my passage
With the fire of their guns
I was adrift in a sea
Of ancient green pines
Unshaped and unguided
Like ore in a mine
I fell in with a drifter
From up in Alaska
We wandered out east
Through the Sierra Nevadas