Off The Road

It's all in the art of conversation, isn't it Jack?
Slow drags on cheap cigarettes,
slow sips of bitter coffee
that leaves you chewing
on your lip as you think about
what color your first lay's dress was
so many years ago.

Conversation drifts through your head.
Sometimes you even say it.

Sometimes you just want to pull on that beer,
try to figure it all out.
You really thought you'd get somewhere
didn't you, Jack?

Poor Jack,
you sit there staring out at gray sky,
leaden sky, drizzling and spitting
and you wonder why there is no respite.
Jack, there was only the road.
That was the secret you let out to all
but yourself and you sit pondering
the edges of the old wood table.
Cigarette burns decorate its edges
in a staccato line of black char
and waxed brown and you stare at it,
look at it,
see the random design,
lose your self in it
as the cigarette burns
down to your fingers,
as the heat comes slowly
closer to your fingers,
as your attention slowly
comes back
to this moment.


Jack, you never really knew
did you? You never knew
that the wind sliding in the window,
roaring across the back of the car
and out the other window
is all the poetry there is on the road.
There is no romantic ending

Or, rather, there are too many.
Each week or each month there is this day
better than any near by day
and it ends gloriously. It is high drama.
It is the sun shine streaming
through the dark blue clouds
onto the meadow
at just the right moment,
at just the right angle,
at just the right intensity
for just you to see this bright
blink of eternity

And then it's gone.
It goes away and you say,
you Jack, you say everything
everyone has ever almost thought about it.
You, Jack, you live it,
you live it so well
we drool over every memory,
over every immortal word
but you Jack, you had to wake up
the next day.
You had to seek the next all time
best romantic, blissful moment
and you did, Jack, you did.
You did this for us, Jack.
You did it well.
You did it over
and over.

And now you want to stop.
You despair this journey
has no end.
That this road goes
no where
and all I can say is,
all we can say is,

Try to behave Jack,
everybody is counting on it.
Did you really think
we'd let you drive
all that way
and live?

RD Savage
08/5/93

published in Metaverse: the Anthology 1994-1995
© 1993 by RD Savage