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Collected Poetry

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poetry and digital art

Beating Heart, Dancing Feet  

  Black 


Few things can be more stirring than
a well-selected string of popular songs
screaming from a loud, car radio
on a wet and twisting, rural night.
Wishing there was something simple,
something that was akin to something
like a push-button, or a menu,
an icon, mouse-click, a subordinate
menu astutely hidden
down a path that is hard to recall.
But the moment will come, ambient
and a port to some place ineffable, when
it appears—there on the evening scene—
and I call it up, and it comes to me
and it wraps itself around everything.

There must be a man somewhere, sitting
in the dim, late-night studio, intently
smoking a cigarette.  And while he smokes,
songs are called up in his mind.  Songs
that are suddenly regrettable to this weather
or something his girlfriend said to him
that afternoon.  The threads of his life
begin to do a slow twist in melodies
and ribald lyrics:  men and women finding
love and lust, booze and drugs:  old times
lived, lost, or shared opaquely together.

I love the night while driving through its emptiness
in the company of rain.  Tail lights bleed
across the windshield as the road struggles
to keep its shape.  Trees seem wicked
and if there are houses anywhere
they are set back from the road
and everyone inside is content and paying
attention to some sure-footed thing,
a television or the oven or a wood stove.
And there I am again driving a bit too fast,
turning the radio up louder and
knowing it will all end soon enough
when I meet that stop sign outside of town.



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