late night jibber jabber

a 67 charger
the first coat of paint’s just starting to peel off
it grinds when you shift gears and you really have to jiggle it hard
but the shifter is an eight ball, neat, right?

the road spread out before us
highway seven hasn’t seen a cop in years
and even then
the old crown vics wouldn’t stand a chance against our rusting excalibur

up onto the red bridge
I65 totally empty
nothing but the silent staring farms and each other for company
but you wouldn’t have it any other way

from here it’s a straight shot to lansing you know
we just passed through detroit
and the fender is starting to drag
and the carburetor is dying now
and the wheels are wobbling
and we are tired
and we’re sick
but

we are free

bernie, indiana

EDIT> I’ve decided I like most of what I have here but the main problem I think is that the rhyme scheme needs consistency from verse to verse. this may or may not be corrected later.

from the roof to the ground
is only about six inches down
and these tired old walls
have crumbled long ago

The moon over Bernie’s darkening skies
casting down its tired old lies
radiating its spells
over insidious radiowaves
as the flames turned our home into hell

And the last star in the evening’s light
burning hot, burning clean
burning blue and bright
lighting up your face like the stove
that used to sit right over there

and I held you firmly and looked you in the eye
isn’t this the new second chance we had wanted?
As the moon in the skies over Bernie, Indiana
continued to rain down lie after lie

that old brick wall

has finally been torn asunder.

I finally wrote a song- something I though I’d never be able to do for one reason or another.

I will probably put it up here after I put the finishing touches on it.

tumultuous portents abounded in last night’s and late morning’s dreams. i remain resolute. off to work.

the day we will win

On our victory day, we still stand behind the open doors of my old Ford.

There will be a breeze that makes the dancing trees sway like old  royalty waltzing to a minuet. It’ll lap over our faces and tussle our hair back. The air on that day will smell clean and warm and of dry grass.

The sun will still set in the west though everything’s changed. That ancient celestial orange will set the evening sky on fire. The purples, the reds and the yellows will be smeared like pastels and the clouds will reflect it all like dull mirrors. We’ll be able to see the moon, and the stars and all of it in all of its majesty.

Down below the muddy Ohio will wink at us with the reflections of the sun scattered across it like a shattered prism as it wanders along its meandering path.

And you and I will look down from the top of the hill, and see what we’ve wrought.

And then, we will live.

les passantes

I felt the wind cutting at my face again today. It’s been a while since I’ve felt it.

Early this morning when I woke up, it was storming. Lightning trickled along the underside of the armada of clouds. I didn’t go into work. Instead, I climbed onto the roof and felt mother nature’s breath grace me as the storm passed by, high above.

After that, it was still and humid. The water in the air seemed to stop the wind in the tracks. So I got into my old Toyota, rolled the windows down and gunned it out of this damned crumbling town and out onto the highway. There, on the road, I felt the wind cut at my face again.

Font paraître court le chemin

But the only short roads are ones that have ends to them. Out past Versailles, Lafayette and Warsaw. The blank farmlands and crumbling barns. Fading Mail Pouch tobacco advertisements. Houses that could barely be considered lean-tos with gigantic satellite television dishes attached to them. The real American heartland.

If I had the money, and the gas, I think that I’d just drive across the country aimlessly, stopping only to sleep as I needed it. And not just on the highways. Through the crisscrossing county back roads, and rainy alleys. Sixty miles per hour, seventy, eighty, ninety. When it starts to rain I’m going so fast I don’t even need to turn on the windshield wipers. Running never solves anything, though. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.

The farms pass in blinks as I weave in between the steel dragons carrying logs, fuel and frozen television dinners (competitively priced) across the nation. People’s lives, generations- lives, deaths, births, hard times and golden ages that I’ll never know are tossed like dry autumn leaves in my wake. I will never know them. I wish I could.

And so I move on, around the bends, barreling through the tunnels. The grinding engine, wobbling wheels and the incessant screeches of a serpentine belt needing replacement phase me not. If I can just go a little farther, a little faster, maybe all that’s behind me will lose its resolve and stop its pursuit.

I only ever really feel at home when I’m in motion. Until I can keep at it, I’ll let the wind cut at my face when I can.