Ode to a Road Runner

(March 6, 2014)

Diamond hard headache

you have a chemical in your left hand

and the door is to your right. 

Pavement. 

Take the pavement, quick.

Oh wrinkled earth,

do you feel my gentle journeys

across your skin?

I am the unfaithful sojourner,

who deepens the creases of grief

that guide your tears to the ocean.

Lamenting earth,

Do you quake for the dead I've buried

a few feet beneath your surface

or choke on blowing ashes?

Are you immune to mankind?

Have I been the cause of your tears

that fill the ocean with salt?

I traverse your land on rivers of fear

in search of a sea of fulfillment,

while others sail your oceans of doubt

to find terra firma. 

We search for a remedy

until the search itself becomes a malady.  

I’ve buried the dead 6 feet deep into your skin –

has this made you immune to mankind.

Replaying life

in the width of a road crack.

I found love in the Philippines

Laughed with Slavic sailors

Drank with Swedish shipbuilders

All in the  Port of Inchon. 

I became homesick on Rotnest island –

I felt the tempest of history

on a train to Heidelberg,

I saw women in burkas 

doing zumba along the Persian Gulf.

I cried for him on a mountain. 

I swallowed my soulmate whole in a caravanserai. 

I forgave my father around a campfire,

I thought to write this

Here on the road –

I’m amazed at how vast

and hollow I am –

filled with nothing…

The universe follows me

on my wrist.

My time is up.