Thinking I might not be here

Here i am
in front seat
foot upon wheel
knees bent
slouched

the windows of the two door cracked
wind worries by
rushed along by condo skyline

car double parked in

i find no reflection in the endless
glass house line

i watch for cars running through me or bodies or lines
maybe i'm no longer here?

maybe i'm immovable

maybe i'm the gray sky

maybe it's just sunday afternoon.

More than Running

Had I dented it enough, the front drivers side door socked in by the back fender
of an old Toyota 4x4 flatbed truck Chinoteague Virginia USA in a drug store
parking lot off main street, left screws some other shit snapping around on
sharp turns sudden stops overall it was holding together, even so each time
I open the damn thing I expect it to hit the curb face down, haven't alerted insurance
yet what's the claim window I don't know as soon as possible means a lot of things
none of them vaguer than how I see it, this is the kind of thing you wonder out loud to
yourself when you're coming down and every thought centers itself in the world of
now that you'd been shitting on or purposely forgetting up to the point where your
brain is taking it upon itself to reinsert you into the humanity machine, this had more to
do than running the engine hoping the transmission wouldn't fail, as I've had experience
with only used cars in my life, the kind that meltdown or overheat at the drop of a dime
or quick stop sign stop, all this in my head beside visions robot conveyor belts and
garbage compactors for human skin, what takes precedent is dreams, too all mixed
and unrelated, laugh to yourself a forgotten thought and the car is still there in its
three-dimensional glory, so that you're forced to consider how much was your fault
after all and will you just get your god damn shit togther and fucking handle it already
what the fuck.

Cold Opening

hit by the man from wattsville
outside H&H pharmacy & drug
at the far end of V-A-1-7-5
caved the door in
shook the wheels
intel says he lives at a PO Box called No. 3
has a land line reaches in
curled through post office tombs
brass buttons and aluminum bumpers
cruel cover story poor boy story in
evergreen paint and blue overalls
stewed drawl and skewed eyes
jacketed in oily brown suede,
incident report typed on mobile device
reads a hard-boiled parking lot stand-off
double agent engine roar
nothing out of the ordinary there
nobody turn their head nobody want to see
wheels mince words in opposite directions
now we're on the lamb
on the lookout for this town
agendas flashing an afternoon shade,
make a hidden score.

For you and only you to see

Alley way
painted in orange
street light,

cars on either side
sleepy, still

poem painted in still life

there's not much going on,

except, a figure in black
sneaking between cars,
he's knelt down, peers above
car hoods, into windows,
tries each lock, finds one
he likes, eases himself in,
hunched over in the front seat,
he's rocking almost imperceptibly,
sound of car starting shatters
night silence, the car rolling,
no lights, turns out slowly
on to one way street and gone,

alley silent again,

one extra light flicks on,

man appears, leans out, disappears inside,

feet on apartment steps,

the moon isn't visible from where I sit.

Parking Scheduled

about 34 degrees,
sky is that strange city glow,
purple-orange
hue, makes me think of rain
or the cold or 2 am walking home
drunk, street lights obscured
by dampness in the air,

I take a deep breath by the side
of the road, wait for a lazy car to pass,
it turns, lights fading away,

next car won't pass for a minute or so,
headlights off in the distance
out past Glebe,

I look both ways,
there's dark clouds gravid with
coming storms up there,
or maybe just the same old night
sky,

who knows...?

it'll have to wait, anyway,
I've got just enough time
to take a piss and get going.

there are things you hear and things you know

The guy that stole the
diamonds was 6 feet 4,
he had eyes and hair,
he passed me on the street
and slit my tires later that
night, I asked the newspaper
stand man on the corner a question
about immortality, the clouds were
a gray 17 degrees and dying,
he grinned and tipped his cap with
my car deflated in the street,
and the diamonds
got away

The Corsica

The window above
seems open, tho I can't
feel the winter winds burying
my old car in ice across the street,
so tomorrow, with wool hat pulled
down tight and jacket zipped
up to my chin, I'll be out there like
an ice fisherman chopping away at the outside and,
Christ, the inside of the damned thing
all frozen, and when it melts it'll short
out my radio, drip by drip
causing the digital clock to read
1:Ho or 1:68 and Joe says it like,
"Oh, it's one-H-zero!" outside the diner
where Den had to get Spaghetti and garlic bread
with no meatballs, and we drank coffee together
into the night thinking, what are we gonna do now?

(to be read as the beginning of this poem) Like...

Beige carpets showing age
my steps unearth
cross-hatched plastic glue
underneath scuttling rubber shoes,

worn thin,
                Tick-tock

Journey's through
fast food drive-ins and
supermarket self-checkout lanes
(without that unnecessarily necessary small talk)
finds me missing that almost pretty girl
(sad smile and all)
that we'll never know,
                                to forget.
as we drive away-

we live on in modern times with literature all around us

falling is love,

when she's moving her arms

in a flash of explanations, 

hands forming every single feeling word,

he's standing apart from her

two drags on his cigarette for every syllable 

and it's not sad, it's empty,

just empty, the emptiest thing I ever saw

with doc martin shoes and a ragged copy

of some forgotten detective novella

stashed in their pockets

outside the unnamed diner with the fourth letter burned out

in the middle of the afternoon sun

looking down at her empty eyes,

the tubes connecting her to the life-giving iphone-pod-slayer

playing the theme song of her life,

some lady-gaga dirty harry make believe empty dream,

and if he was listening he'd see its already dead

and black as his lungs and 50 years ago sad,

but now falling like love

as my car passes by and 

forces them off into the gray distance

the only word i can seem to find

in my hands is empty.

The Time Traveler and the Auto Salesmen

I'm writing to change
the future,
but you already forget me,
I left a letter for you
next to the vase of chrysanthemums
on your desk,
I wanted to write:

"The Dreams you had of me
were meant to come true,
but for time they were only sketches
to erase."

Instead I wrote
"I guess I missed you,
Love,
Tom"

The woman at the flower shop
typed heavily on the cash register,
I told her never send
Christmas flowers
in February with the sky
gray and winter watching,

There was a 57' Chevy
in the parking lot,
in 1957 it was new,
it looks new today,
its license plate
reads:
"Classic Car."

it had once read:
"DGC-1486"

I told the woman at the DMV this
and that classic cars
aren't really old or classic
they just are,
I think she smiled,

I walked to your desk,
but you weren't there
and so I waited,
a man told me you no longer
worked here,
it looked like he had a firm handshake
I didn't test him,

I wondered where you had gone,
I stood there for a while
deciding to scribble a
short message
in case you ever returned

I looked at your desk,
empty but for the
fading ring left by some fading glass
I crumbled the note and
fit it into my pocket
to reread later,

how strange,
I remembered
because
I was going to
leave you flowers
but
I forget them.