๐๐น๐ฝ๐ต๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐น๐น๐ฒ
๐ฃ๐บ ๐๐ต๐ฆ๐ฑ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ข๐ด ๐๐ฐ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ต๐ด
You canโt outrace the shadowsโ
Particles of gloom invade your tiny
Quadrant of the earth, as
The Studebaker Sun speeds on
To California,
Careering off horizonโs edge
In shuddering sparks of rust,
Lost in the traffic of the sky.
But your soul is still in hot pursuit.
Afterimage imprints of
Celestial motion picture taxis,
Waiting for a fare in San Francisco,
Your scuffed Florsheims, travelling quick,
Leap onto rotting running-boards,
Your crushed fedora nailed firmly
To your crown of skull,
Brim turned down to shield the eyes
From Hollywood Depression glare,
As that icicle of a Jack Armstrong/G-Man/Wheaties
Badge of righteousness
Freezes blood spewing forth
From heartโs fourth ventricle,
Punctured by mistake
In your haste to be an agent
Of the law.
You clutch the car in desperation
As it takes another parabolic curve
And youโre certain that youโve lost the prey
As the driver floods the engine
In the alcohol excitement
Of the chase.
You are stranded now
And find yourself off-course
Bewildered in an unfamiliar
Quarter of the City,
Where suspicion dances
At the edges
And you are static,
Immobilized against
The motion of the street,
As jack-oโ-lantern nightmares
Driving past
Ululate their anger,
Leaning out of open windows
And curse in fluent gibberish
From burning candle sneers of mouths.
The vision moves you
Once again
To seek some shelter
In the rapid-pulsing
Artificial dusk of bars,
Where you meet a woman
Who is not put off
By the exhaust exhaling
From your gut,
As you speak surreal
Of radio waves passing
Through the filter of a
Human soul, focused and intensified
In search of sympathetic
Stations, hopeful of decipher,
Rippling in the
Crystal sea of air.
Her eyes flutter like
Censored frames of film
That drift to cutting room floors.
In the amber light of cigarettes
You both are silent.
She attends to other things,
While you are contemplating,
With subtle fascination,
The phosphorescent image of
Your watch hands,
Radium brooms, sweeping
Dusty seconds off
The mahogany of the evening.
It makes you think of
Electronic screens
Maintaining trajectory and
Position changes, as
Vectors alter through
Angular displacement.
It brings to mind the Sun again
Now touring over Europe,
Unchallenged by the border guards
Who stand in photographic seizure
By their unquestioned duty.
You start to leave the room,
Yet hesitate on portalโs edge,
Waiting for wisteria to free
The senses from the scissor-lock
Of black despair.
The mourning doves
Begin their somber cadence
As they feel the tremble of the daybreak.
You see the sky melting overhead
In ecstatic radiation,
As the mathematics of the world
Plug co-efficients in equations,
And radar flowers track
The rocket flare of dawn.