About the poem I left in my car

I left a poem in my car,
in the slot at the bottom of the driver's side door,

it was about a closed road and geese landing
in a pond,

there were reeds around the pond
and the road was nothing but smashed rock,
powdered gray earth,

I was stopped at a red light inbetween,
then I was writing as I drove,
pen scratching steering wheel,

it wasn't until I was a mile away
and the car engine cooling down
and the interior heating up in the sun
that I realized I'd left my words behind.

Traffic

those red eyes, move steady toward me

night chases the morning          on headlight streams

& bitter miles left to go     the bitter miles between me

where I am meant to be     in traffic hours ago

a dry cough          into empty water bottle neck

soon by the side of the road inked in red          Both doors closed

I'll lose the lead I've built up          the dam will break

those red eyes, move steady, fading away

US-301S

crust of plantation grange
lifted in sponge of night
rain
     
         through car vents
manure sowed

                         fertilizer fields
ripples rows of tree

                                  flat land
fat land swamp waft obscure
stagnant blue ponds

                                    moss pours
iridescent
             
                   sequin shift of streaking
drops tear and spread become bits of
static light
                 
                    stretch realign mingle disperse

Friday Nights

starting off at dusk--
on car piled, metal snake
slinging cement gray road
plied by mass of commuter transit
nightmares, all hands headed to opposite
shores, quiet homes, small
pleasures, lonely hours,
ovens cold, fast food on table top,
missing children, barking dogs, hungry
cat, snow shifting madness, waiting tolls--
I get those sad groaning butterflies
of driving east, driving toward the old
shore, the thick waves of brown atlantic--
away from the great western stretch,
pioneers and new lands, fabled
journeys long etched into memory--
those sad eastern butterflies of
going home, of timelessness, and long
lost childhoods reaching out to me,
speaking in languages
I can no longer comprehend.

Bus Haiku

Star over Parkway
invisible & clouded
by man's inventions

she's sweet
like all taken girls
like mine, alone, waiting

to each side
two seats, two bodies
headed north, estranged.

is it cold
in baltimore?
I'll never know

I'll never know
if it's cold
in Baltimore

In Baltimore
it's cold,
I'll never know

Round Trip (postmarked)

Gettin' on that sad
overnight bus
300 mile round trip
to sad bygone Philadelphia,

see me in stark night
     I'm outta sleep
     and no words can
     puncture the veiny lines
     of heaven

we'll all go like the van's
in Kansas broken on that
last great trek--

and at least somebody
     still thinks the old girl
     made it in one piece &
     always will,

I'll be rolling back come sundown
only bluest highway eatin' my time

It's like this--
     before I hit home
     before I come around
     It's ended.

Broke down Broke

A lonely taxi
an island in the right lane
a kidney stone
to be passed,
but not helped
not pushed to the side,
an hour behind schedule,
angry traffic
angry northern trek,
cars diverge to
hidden destinations,
swerve to shoulder,
hit the breaks,
a continuous line
DC to Baltimore
parkway sad red lights
faded out,

can you imagine taking a bus out west?
she says,

I can imagine it,
I can imagine anything,

my mind, my body.

map

today

3 hours south,
light in my eyes

I shifted the visor
at every turn

but sun shone
relentlessly taking
refuge from my defenses
at the corner of the windshield
impossible corner
sun shining

95
495
13
1
301
50
95
495
1

just off jeff davis
daylight fading

137

tonight

3 Hours to go

Stopped in roadside wawa
US-50 East toward Bay Bridge to
hit ATM for toll money,
got coffee instead wondering if I should
get gas, maybe breakfast, walked out
into cold morning weather
hopped in car merged into
traffic remembered why I had stopped
pulled off, followed twisted roads
attempting to reverse engineer
direction for return trip, found 7-11,
took out money, didn't bother to look around,
found my way back, blew into cold hands
knees on the wheel, sip of coffee,
turned up billy joel, headed for Pennsylvania.

Bolt

mercy mercy mercy mercy
mercy
Montgomery park is big red
San serif signing
without trees or
                    greens only visible
                    in the steel sky of
                    night.

In Baltimore the word moans outward
                    across
                               heaven.

follow blinking polka dot arrows.
paved veins.
re-purposed arteries.
coal burnt hearts.
find the mark to stab it deep.

the south
bleeds black
tarry blood
from its
many wounds

I vomit,
            from the stench,
the ground
kisses my feet.

Burn me! I live!

In Philly it was
winter's chill & driver (must
be new to 95 straight line
corridor) goes wrong direction
--and there's the PA welcome sign--
heading
          I think to Wilmington
instead of Port of
     but come on man
          both get you
     there eventually anyways
                               for God's sake
Just hit the gas
     & let's spring 5 hours
into our later--into the heart of the
un-dead American dream theater--
   
     before I can get home
     I'm out with the Taxi driver
                    checking out
                    the scrape & dents
                    on his brand new
                    bumper--
"He owns this car?" I'm thinking
                    I guess he does
which makes the
warm night air taste a bit
sadder until I'm inside &
     the sirens burn out the
cascading colors of route 1
hotel rooms hotel lights hotel hearts
     the fire engines
                            head
                                    my way
put out the trees
& tuck me in--

Greyhounds of dusk

I suspect--fear--
(am afraid) I may be
trippin' out of--seen the
same Royal Farms
gas station with green/blue
sign--3 times--signs
point I-95 both sides
of road--but he can't find it--clueless driving
and we'll never escape
Baltimore--had to take
eyes off book--was looping--
dropping--shifting--losing--
forgetting the air the space the weight--
and magnitude--God, find
road soon--or I might lose
whatever's left--
Ah--Again!--gas station,
I am lost--in--lost--dripping
HELL--I am lost--like
eventually we wither and die
sulkily--a forgotten sack
of shit bones nothing--

Bus notes

I know you're out there
lugging my bags 137 miles,
your skinny arms straining,
sweating and hating me in the sweet
way only you can, I know I'm
going to see you soon and you'll give me that
look that growls and rages and would be so cute
if it wasn't so scary

Bliss

The road to DC is green
with broken tired trees collapsed
along the journey but in place
straight arrow south except for
this fantastic break of wide beautiful
brown river silently drifting, I
imagine I work on that cliff side
farm of eternity, over rocks
one hundred foot drop down to
riverside railroad tracks, what
a life in those fields, alone
and free somewhere between
yawning cities, the summer scent
of long grass in the breeze,
a mile west on invisible
peninsula little cottage houses
range out in the running water,
it's not so deep, it's peace away
from the bridge I pass in ten seconds
watching the frozen image-- making
out the passing lives, the curling currents
I stand on the edge of that
forever and jump to my
weary bliss

But is this the end?

Been in the storm n'
rain n' crowns,
Jesters golden restin',
worn, down by,
pH levels spiked acid
faces barely recognizable
in soft featureless morbid
smooth eye socket wth/out
wrinkles and thought...

hock hock tock
the rambling incoherent clock-

I've got the time/place too
juicebox (hawaiian punch)
somewhere's toppled, crunched
or is it- Hi-C- yea
with slimer orange yellow box
flapless, why not green? eh,
it's anyone's guess on rocking boat
in formless ethereally eternal seas-

fear, I haven't written alot about fear
the sun coming down firey red and tired
flaming sparks on that long wrong road
between here and there, stretching off
into childish unclear horizon ancient painting
in ancient lands newly settled legend American coastline,
my coast line from Philly to DC,
where I've lived my life rolling,

But is this the end? huh? Seems like it's
some end, so like clear night sky
I close my eyes and dream-
of pasts and futures and where I'm dreaming
in the present, there it all merges under the ghastly
pleasant filiment streaked pink and blue
falling behind picket fences and cat cries.

3

The Delaware gurgles brown and slow,
limping along beside me, its banks
rotting wood and greenish-slosh
so dark it takes on the sucking terror-color of tar,

harrassed by the steady continental decline
its bitter and stinging waters are forced
out into the far-off sea, to be lost
forever and ever, continuously, infinitely forever
under the weight of ocean salt and kelp,

I can follow its sad movements,
lost among smaller names and twisted channels,
until the heavy tread of the Potomac,
rushing torturously through mountain passes and crumbling hills,
violently floods out its memory,
sending fish and heroes
rushing deaths ahead past Harpers Ferry,
emptying the carriage and its legend
into a muskets wet and gunpowder caked ambush,
Continental army soldiers in dometicated suits and how-do-you-dos,
playing a waiting song
at a broken horse rest-stop far from that iceberg bounding Christmas Eve

PHI->DC

Wolves howling into the fog
toward wherever we are,
coming at us like the sick orange bulbs
that make to guide our way,
but merely watching sickly,
drip-drop-drip
drops of cold neon green
sweet blood,
following along at a
quickened deadlocked pace,
as we lurch along
like the Chinatown bus
thirsty for $15 and
Baltimore's lights

Speed Radar Enforced

Elitist, Enforce, Enable

e words
beginning with e,
ending with e,
e e e e e e-----

then the car convulses
the bodies drop below,

it's summer meaningless--

she picks the flower off the ground
yesterday
or tomorrow
her hand prepared and waiting today,
in a flash
speed and metal coalesce
into a blurry nothing blur-

words splash forth
pelting windows and eyes,
sleepy doe-eyed eyes
twisting like spaghetti
in preformed plastic bowls,
words splash forth

the street is coated endless-
ly-

with the common vowel
and the police watch lazy
and silent\\\\\\

from some far off place
as chaos reigns/////

blasting sound waves
into oncoming traffic