Poem: tailgater

I do a lot of mental writing when I am driving.  Sometimes its the landscape or the 'alone-time' but mostly when I am driving, I know I have a captive chunk of time when it's ok to let my mind wander.  If I'm driving and musing and playing with words, I'm not procrastinating! I'm commuting!  I find it hard to make time to do creative things when I'm home because all I can think about is all the OTHER things I'm meant to be doing with my time instead.  So I'm learning to really embrace the bouts of creativity I experience when driving (although writing things down can get tricky, and pretty sloppy).

Here is a piece I put together from a bunch of recent-ish snippets I came up with while driving.  While it is a poem about driving, I don't put that all down to the fact that I was driving when I was throwing these phrases and stanzas around--- in general, I really gravitate towards stories and metaphors that pivot around images and sensations of driving, journeying, escaping or being 'in transit' versus traveling or heading to a destination.  So many of my random story/scene ideas seem to be about people driving, but not necessarily going anyplace of any particular relevance. Or are they?

Anyways: Here's "Tailgater."  It doesn't flow well and lacks focus right now.  I'm thinking of changing the title to something like: Ballad of a Tailgater or Message from a Tailgater, but I haven't found on the right combination that matches the mood of the poem.


"Tailgater"

Tailgater shines
headlight teeth.
A light at the end of the tunnel.
bright, dead destiny. wall.

I’m driving home to keep off someone’s loneliness.
That’s all I am.

I think:
he wants me to kill myself
I’m here to make way for his meaningless need
it eats up the black tunnel of space
--- cancerous mouth.

I plunge through the cake batter.
Feathers of ghost shadows scattering before me.
In the mirrors I hear the slap of handprints against the windows.
For around their feet,
the landscape bleeds into the canyon road,
as it must.

Perhaps the only way to live was to die.

And the only moon is the red stoplight.
It is in the pinholes in my windshield.
cars stand like gravestones
shells with eyes of even empty light

Meanwhile I live in cages for my time on earth
    sucking in the yellow from the sandpaper on my skin
    breathing the rough diamonds of dream pieces.

My only moon is the clock.  Patience.

I want to talk handsfree
    and drive too

And I’ve got no lover to take me places.

All along the highway
I see men throwing ropes
holding bricks of stars in their eyes.

Feel the weight in the air. in my hand.
against the metal of the motor.

Breathe in our night air that
    hovers in the morning
    mist: eat the fog with your teeth.

I turn the wiper blades off to see
if I can survive behind a
glitter mask
in my safe ice cube

I can see the halo of my lashes
falling from my face in the light of that gleaming smile.

ahead
cars hurrying crash in the night
bringing an end to those desires.