Posted by Atticus on September 27, 2004, at 17:48:20
Sitting in a Full-Throttle Plastic Pew
Kerouac’s on the roof sucking sacramental draughts
Of sweet fever-dream nicotine
Deep into tar-stained right-brained
Shivering silky synaptic webs
As curling Holy Ghost wisps
Of smoky soul
Flow from his lips
Like evanescent exhaust haunting
Dead and dying asphalt anaconda curves
Unable to shed their sun-split skin
Along the shredded blistered surface
Of Route 66’s gray and crackled
Wind-swept snaking scales of tattered tar.And he’s leaning on a bruised brick wall
With the skeletal metallic blackened bones
Of fire escapes frozen in mid-slither
Up the dinosaur-hide sides of prehistoric tenements
Visible over his shoulder,
A ratty copy of a locomotive brakeman’s manual
Protruding like a Bible from the jacket pocket
Of a pit-stop preacher whose pedal-to-the-metal gospel
Is the revelation and elation of sheer unmotivated motion.His supercharged sleek slicked-back hair
Suggests speed even as he slouches motionless,
A gearshift-muscled and gasoline-blooded
Engine of savage street Beat energies,
Captured in restless tense pensive repose
By Allen Ginsberg’s Kodak Brownie’s shutter
On an overcast long-past afternoon in ’53
Mere months before “On the Road”
Rolled off the presses
Like the roaring soaring purr
Of a V-8 engine tuned
To g*ddamned near perfection,
And transformed him from urban urchin
To highway troubadour,
The piston-driven paramour
Of pavement salvation
Leading to God knows where,
And the hectic electric ecstasy
Of the getting from here to there
Without ever having to arrive anywhere.Sitting in a full-throttle plastic pew
Wrapped in a romantic’s steel cathedral,
Playing whining high-pitched hymns
On an organ of white-walled wheels
That growl bluesy high-octane spirituals,
Chrome fiery choirs singing
To unquiet minds like my own,
As I fix my inner gaze
On the far side of secret horizons
That promise an elastic trip-the-light-fantastic
Rocket-fueled fandango with four-on-the-floor
And one blissful moment of nitro-burning rapture
’Cause, when you get down to it,
Man, that’s all I’m asking for.
-- Atticus
poster:Atticus
thread:395953
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20040925/msgs/395953.html