Driving with Miles

 

 

Driving with Miles

Rain falls, steady, and I say so what.
Wipers try in vain to keep the beat,
but this combo is too tight.
The bass just layin’ it down,
horn and sax sparring.

There’s a fog rolling through the hills,
tellin’ the rain
hold the ice, this is just too cool.

Bare branches, with pines the only green
in a landscape of white on brown.

Wait! A lone birch like a ghost that knows.
As blue as this feels,
there will be no blue sky.

And that so what refrain slips in
and out.

Narrow roads now,
winding through wet grass
lined with granite and marble.
A memorial among memorials,
some barely legible.
Everything here is blue,

except the pines, white now with big, heavy flakes.
Country roads skirt the mountains,
Snow, now powder, hangs in the air
like a fog. Roads slicker than the music.

Hands tense on the wheel.
Piano eases through me, slowly
levels out, brings me back to the lake,
out there somewhere,
blue asleep within the white.

 

 

This is from a reading at Spine Bookstore & Café, St Louis, MO (12 Mar 2023).

Driving with Miles is included in my poetry collection, Glass Awash, published by Spartan Press.

Shared with OpenLinkNight at dVerse ~ Poets Pub.

 

24 thoughts on “Driving with Miles

  1. This is incredibly powerful writing, Ken! It was lovely hearing you read it today. I especially resonate with; “Snow, now powder, hangs in the air like a fog. Roads slicker than the music.” 💙💙

    Liked by 1 person

  2. I enjoyed seeing your reading and hearing you today.
    I really love the intertwining of music, and the sights around you, and the repetition of blue in different ways–just the way it looks in the snow and sounds in music.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Fascinating combination of sounds and visions. Not just noises and sights, but visions and music. Exquisite touch of color in the darkness. Beaten rhythm of words and windshield, tree and sky, poet and world. Hints of genealogy and stone. You actually give me chills, Ken. Bravo.

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s