I drive the 59 –
the autumn line between
Miles City and Cohagen –
61 earth-toned miles sliding north
until my story ends when it’s time for me
to shut up at 48 miles out –
I greet the first of 5 oncoming vehicles
with a two-fingered wave.
What cannot save me is just what might
as a horde of 4 more cars
approach and pass on sub-two-dollar gas -
a flash can of driven machinery beastliness,
and my dime ain’t worth two cents
while you rest for the final 8 miles.
I must admit that what I meant
to say is not the way I meant
to say what I was thinking,
but when you recall those last
37 miles to town yesterday, I want you
to pound your truth deeper inside of me
than I’ve ever been able to swallow it.
I lost all the right speech I had
long before we began this trip –
my lip sliding off my face into a
left-tipping slippery race of
a west coast far away…
I drive the 59
for a thousandth time less today
than you’ve been previously driven.
A buck lays low along the road,
a doe hops a barbed wire fence.
Present tense falls away on
roadside lines drawn down
gravel covered tar pit surfaces,
and what makes this purpose more
meaningful than roads paved less?
It was 19-something when you
let the earth go swirling off
into a slingshot phase out of interpretive thought –
grazing my sideburn gray with age –
we bought into the linear conception
because it was more affordable then –
boy, has the market ever changed.
I drive the 59,
but not alone like I made it sound last time –
you rebound like a walled-out walleye
swimming upstream into an airstream pocket
you mistook for a silver bullet home on wheels
built for refugees of the road.
Author notes
Yep, those 60 miles between town and the ranch can stick a patch on a one-eyed driving passenger like nobody's business. I'll drive it again as soon as I can.
A contest entry
- prewrites by Melissa Gayle.
800 points, ended December 10, 2008, 26 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
1 - 17 of 17
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It only takes one incendiary slip of the tongue... next thing you know you melting' down a polar icecap, flirtin' with fossilization... Ah! Where would we be without the wheel?
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i call shotgun
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this was amazing. i am so so glad that i took the time to read this because its not everyday a writer can have me in the story watching it in color. you told this in high def my friend. awesome scribe!!
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only the best for all the beautiful people - we are that, you know?
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Love that opening stanza, I just want to hitch a ride and come along.
Three is a total tongue twister to me, at least the first few lines - love the feel of it, I think it works well with the driving aspect.
I really, really like the feel of this piece. It is full bodied, the images work well and the bursts of emotion at different levels on enhance the piece itself
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Hah! #3 is where the entire story hinges - havin' a perfectly good conversation and then communication break down occurs with one statement. damn - ended that with a whiff of silence...thanks for reading.
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"I want you
to pound your truth deeper inside of me
than I’ve ever been able to swallow it."
good gawki amawki! if i said that i be in big trouble and dayum i wish i did. total trip
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Pretty damn cool, dude...
At first, I thought this is one of those poems where you could cut out all the words and drop them into a little velvet bag, then pull them out one by one and rearrange them on the table in front of you. And it would still come out the same and mean the same thing. But after reading it a couple more times, I don't think that is the case at all. The words have to be arranged in this particular order or they would not mean a thing. There are one or two phrases here that are mind-blowingly clever. I love your Montana poetry best of all, Eddie Velvet.
Remember, words are painted fire...
♥ crissy
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how could they not mean a thing if they mean nothing already, or do they have a greater meaning than has been noted? i lost the hair on knuckles writing this and have learned to live with burn scars. thank you, crissy...
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"I want you
to pound your truth deeper inside of me
than I’ve ever been able to swallow it. "
that is a dead sexy line..
and this was
a dead sexy poem
m
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if you see a tunnel burrowing through the countryside while you're drivin' 59....for God sake STOP!!
Yeah, you're all about melting clocks....
and much much more. Love, Lane
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You are fueling my fantasies like a Freudian fanatic!!! Funny i "USED TO" own a 38 ft Avian bullet... But that was BEFORE i needed to be re-luded, cuz i'm deluded from a lack of sleep... You express yourself like 'none other"
Ithy
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"lude" up and get back out on the road. I see a large RV in your near future, Ithy. You could sleep all you want. thanks for checkin' in and leaving your mark.
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This makes me want to indulge in a roadtrip around the US! I have to say, I like this side of you! It's raw and honest and comprehensive yet it maintains that air of Salvador Dahli, if that makes sense! When I read your poetry I think of melting clocks
You always make me think that little bit harder.
Astounding poetry!
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get in, fill up and take off - you appear to be young enough to just keep riding, and gas is cheap - compared to my last trip to Montana @ $4.50 a gallon! Salvador comparrison? Now you're makin' my head swell, and my jaw's already numb from the dentist earlier today... i'm fallin' apart now... remember: making sense is not what it's all about.
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LOL!!
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That is just so you man. to take even the most ordinary subject and spin it so surrealisticly real. Kudos to the power of K.
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