Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia
                                        color me voodoo.
The oranged-pink hue of the sunshine
                                        feeds me mellow.
Head on the road ’n’ off the rodeo,
        Blakey on the radio — “Please give me
                               a pretty overdose with othello dayglow”
Mansions mate with motorhomes. Methane skies gas burnt-out residents.
Tiredthoughts&drymouth; Think it’s a drought—
                                                             Could be a pestilence.
       “****, it’s too hot out
                                  for the middle-of-September!..Ach-urr!”
I cough&choked on a memory—Remember-
                                                ­            ing youth’s relentless attention
                                                       ­ to nothing in particular but
                                                             ­   its boundless pursuit of every-
                                                        th­ing in-between.

I used to look to the Blue and think I’d float away
                                  but
             that’s when I believed in miracles.
Nowadays, reality has no sympathy just a noose — tighter leash,
                       anchored soles to a meanconcretecaprice
                                                with
                                 no abstract release — (still)
I drive ‘round Podunk & keep away from po-lice.

I stop in the corner-market
    to cop some energy&fillup on gasoline;
    at the pumps
tilt my bushy-brunette crown back to admire
            the delicious slices of tangerine evening-sky
                  topped by thick whippingcream clouds...
...Remiss though;
     futile, in wild aims to pause Time
                   and repossess my myself: immobilized
          I was separated from body centuries ago
                                   & today (i) continue
                                    a microstep behind (my) experience...
...Wait inside my 99 Suzuki Esteem
        cigarette cherried, Brubeck on NPR;
Waiting for my man, he’s always late.
                   Waiting, so I can buy it.
                   then smoke it.
                   then hide myself;
          Stow-ed a-way
& it’s almost fall,
        I find peace in the fallen leaves,
           the stoic desperation in the liberation
              of those sweet Autumn trees.

Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia is a solitary perfume;
         let it take the wheel&lead the way —
I can see silhouettes
         through the fog of cigarettes, hologram faces.
Drive ‘round town over bridges I forgot to burn
            and
      instead, just let decay...

Drive ‘round town — let
        the music choose my destination, let
                                       the rhythm lead the way, let
               the groove shake the memories loose.
Sometimes I drive for hours, sometimes
                                                I let my mind wander for days.
Sometimes I roll the world on my tongue,
                                                sometimes­ I have nothing to say.


Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia
                                         color my contempt;
       Deadwood&drygrass&nomoneyforent.
                  Sanity is counted in dollars&cents
       & This place always stinks like ****.

I love the beauty of the lake
                                 but
                            I hate what it reflects.
Hushed earth-tones and
                pastel humanity,
Vanity injected with a tie-around-the-neck.

Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia
                                 keeps me from sober.
        The sun feeds my head
                                 and the roads are now my owner.
“**** it’s too cold out
                                 for the middle-of-October!”

Hushed earth-tones
                        and pastel humanity;
Blush'd guru trance O how petty I’ve be-come!
 ... isolation is intoxicating.
           “No more, no more…”
I’m already dumb,
           Shouldn’t I be happy?

Drive ‘round town; Nostalgia
                                        color me voodoo,
                the faded twilight feeds my melancholy;

In spring I plant my harvest in fall I reap the seeds.

Nothing much else to do.

But
Drive ‘round town & let the countryside woo me.
Lived here for 15 years,
           (turns out)
nobody ever knew me.

There was one sunset, of all the rest, I will never forget. All the green countryside miles, all the flashy cars in furious thunderstorms, all the music that matched the red oranged skies of the dusk (because they were as pure as that) - all of that remains untouched by the jaws of time. The sunset of our first night together.

I've sinced learned what it means to love, to let go, and to never look back. I've loved and let go of it, but I can never, ever forget that one sunset of my life.

Many more will follow, many more will surely become objects of nostalgia. That's the way of life, I suppose. And all those dreams we shared, I don't regret any of them. It's good to look back and remember a time when life was easy to live and so full of sunshine; where smiles and eyes were easy to reach.

But I'm better now than I was then. A better man, with better dreams, and hungry for new sunsets. And while it feels good to remember those days of youth, I know nostalgia belongs in the realms of shallow fantasies. I can only reminisce the good times we had, but I know there was grief and gloom and thunder at times... only Time seems to make everything seem so perfect. Or distance does that. Maybe we do when we look back at the greatest moments of our lives, just because we can not relive them in the same way.

But there's no telling when or where the next sunset is going to happen. There's joy in the past, but there's also an unsettling thrill in the future. There are moments waiting outside of my boundaries, and I still don't know that I know.

We always fear the future. We fear the good things. We fear Death because we are too afraid of not having anything at all to fear. But we need fear. We need it to feel other emotions. We need loss to value life. And we need the night to wish for the day. And we need the present to hope for the future and make the best of it out of our yesterdays.

I red them all, from dawn til dusk
They blue me still with little fuss
Then greying soon we stole away
Until night fell; we oranged all day!
But purpling fervor came too soon
And midnight blackened afternoon
Now all that’s left is what we’ve greened
We’re ever yellowing, or so it seems.

I wonder, as I wander meandering down meander lines, whether meaning lies as simple lines, or branches like the trees about which climb aloft, just as with meanings and intentions, I can't see the endings nor the roots of soils retention, which are buried beneath just like it is in us hidden and only revealed; in a small and concealed mention.

But my attention is not broken, like the fallen branches as gifts or tokens, which lay snapped and separate at my feet, disorganised as soldiers bodies who lay dying on a war ground in defeat, along with these comrades are kept, autumn-ed oranged leaves of trees, that crunch beneath my step and fly within the breeze, as the wind ebbs and flows around me, as the forest breathes.

Though life is as equally as around me, as it is walking down the road, somehow I'm more comfortable amongst these, though they're as equally unknown. There isn't stillness, life is here, the forest flows and moves and it feels like kin are near, that the branches pushing out are reaching like open arms to hold me, contrary to what midnight shadows and horror stories have always taught me.

These contorted, twisted statues so stern and certain, that you are drawn behind the curtain into worlds beyond your own, far past the treaded paths that are to us so comfortably known, to dimensions pushing out into further, by mother nature to preserve her unknowns, these haunting hollow hallows happily taken as adopted homes.

All my wonderings are clearing as the forests edge I am now nearing, all those thoughts I had been fearing are lost and bliss is searing on my mind, though the future is where I’m headed, to the present I am tethered, gone away is the dreaded past on those treaded paths I leave behind.

The
Old man
Sits overflowing with
Mercy. Little of which for
Himself  he reserves. Wrinkled to the
Point of his unbelief. For he  reminisces
Upon the days when he knees jutted out,
So gracefully they sensed no aches and Creaks. A sensational torture for him These days, which might be till his eyes He shuts in darkness.



Upon
A ponder he
Recalls his memory
Serving him so vividly.



When
Nature's breeze
Was the air
He spoke. His hands
Moved, so pumped with speed.
Spurned round and round in the
Tremendous heat. Showing off strength, Speaking of it in ounces.
Bullying  with his words, swindling with his deeds.
Smiles of triumph brush his lips.



'Contemptuos satisfaction'
Screams his lips.
Belittling all around him.
His streak it remained, despite the
Years rolling relentlessly by.Now sealed Permanently in a smirk of regret, as his Sun gradually oranged from the it's Golden rays. Smokeyblue it became.
With a bundle of  shadows bubbling all around.



Left
With no
Friends, lonely with
Echoes. Echoes of emptiness.
Shame. Like an empty shell with its
Occupants lost. Never to be found. Was  it worth it?  Wonders he. All those years
Of  painting sincere pain. Bitter-sour
Scenes on the heroic stage of cruelty.



Was
It worth it?
There he sits, his
Thoughts wandering,lost.....