Ashland

Roads better than Rome’s

and we are all so very far from our homes

white lines guide hand on wheel  over blacktop trails for combustion wagons

 to where the trees grow short and the days are as long as dragons

a small town and its gorgeous scenes

of women walking out of magazines

smelling old books in tiny boutiques

admiring the friendly shop owners peddling antiques

is that Achilles break-dancing between plays in Chautauqua square?

There? where a camp dog watches his master blare,

serenading those sun-glassed tourists with Shakespeare on their tongue?

strumming his nylon strings with little pieces of  himself—young

the hat out, a couple of dollars and a handful of silver coin—nesting

we camp under stars that hum—where darkness becomes a kind of resting

I dream of my home in the rain

a place where trains bring grain—to the sea

woke up to rock in the back, damn arm numb and tingly

sunrise shatters the chill of these arid lands

the creek side, is where I wash my face and hands

Mega mom bangs out breakfast for her four teens

they Meer-cat me, sniff the air and return to their routines

tall trees tugging my eyes to the brow, and everything is fine,

here amongst the pom-pom fingered ponderosa pines

I walk off cold to take hot piss near the frog pond and game room

the only one awake is walking off towards his ditch doom

and Mr blackbird, who are you wearing that armband for?

are you too missing someone you see no more?

high above the cattails and thistles

and now I wonder the phrase, chanted in whistles

Burnt bee? Tur-key? Oh no, it must be,

this, this is hur-ting me…

wandering lose in the gravel shoulder

every step I feel somehow older

finding my winding way to a lake dedicated to emigrants and rowboats

there cross-legged on a grassy jetty letting my soul strum the low notes  

And I feel altogether complete and so very alone,

as if one is breathing in and the other out.