as if the highway were a simple white vector

a vibrating ribbon, flapping and flowing in the breeze.

where do the wild lights go to debate the stars?

 

a scream, a life, a copper-dusk-ditch becomes a dive-bar-life-boat

to those who can’t abide, and i might be able to quote perfect

‘the dharma bums’ as if i were a texan pastor, screaming the gospel

from hoarse lungs soothed later with scotch and sermon,

but I cannot comfort my child.

 

so who really cares if kerouac found his open road?

who cares if ginsberg found the perfect trip while

balls deep in the beat generation? he died like the rest of us,

a smoke stack, a whisper of freezing marble and a blade,

this time dull, an epitaph;

 

here lies another man

who failed at everything he tried.