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Tag: poems

Driving All Night

I find that doing taxes and editing a video take up most of my blogging time. That’s why I’ve been posting old stuff lately.

Old to me anyway.

I’m also trying to plan a bit of a vacation which has me thinking about trips taken in the past. Oftentimes, I had no film (it was expensive!) so I just tried to capture my experiences in short snippets of free poetry, and so with thoughts of Kris Kristofferson singing, “nuthin’ ain’t worth nuthin’ but it’s free,” I give you this, hopefully worth more than nuthin’, but still free…

Some Highway Somewhere

driving all night

three twenty eight a.m.,
they were all asleep;
i stopped the jeep on the roadside,
stepped into the desert dream of night alone;
i sought peace from the thundering snores
of bodies stuffed under blankets
and the moldy smell of a taco bell dinner
bought in wichita falls.

all new mexico’s stars spilled out,
diamonds across the milky way;
i shivered in the crystal air;
i spotted shooting stars and satellites;
i longed for a coyote’s howl to complete my cliché,
but coltrane’s notes were just as good,
drifting like ghosts from the cracked window;
i smiled when elvin jones’ drum solo kicked in
on summertime.

by morning, to sleepy to care,
we argued about who would drive next,
and we rested in the garden of the gods.

©1995, James Brush

Miles (Never Once Imagined)

Leftovers from a road trip in the early ’90s…

Cars near Meteor Crater

Miles (Never Once Imagined)

And we drove for miles—
And we saw those miles—
Drifting out toward space
Layers of desert air so far beyond the mountains
I saw the miles quicken,
Rising up like a beast from the steam of the engine
Outside Albuquerque
Again near Palm Springs
Jeep racing without roof, without doors
Away from Vegas with just eighteen dollars
from one-armed bandits
Leftover pizza hut and half a cup of jingling quarters
There were miles more to go
And others to go them with
So we only stayed in LA for three hours
In the desert that night we both finally saw
The miles to the stars
Humbled to behold and freezing
In the imagined terror of a Mojave midnight
I never could have imagined all the miles still to come
Nor the people with whom I would travel them
Just then
Just there
Everything was right
We had mountains to climb and never once imagined
We would change our minds

Not Really a Security Issue

This is from a few years ago when I was trying to explain haiku to seventh graders on a beautiful spring day much like today. Anyways, the fire alarm went off and we all filed outside to await the all-clear from the fire department all of which inspired this…

ahhh, spring sirens call

outdoors birds singing… lovely

good day for bomb threat

(Probably not really a haiku either.)

Driving to Denver on a Foggy Morning in 1994

Hypnotized by wheels rumbling all through the night

Outside my car, North Texas, transformed, a foggy ocean—
deep, impenetrable, broken by ghosts of signs that manifest mysterious—
and vanish

Punk rock radio, blaring sonic wind, pushes outward—
a star core against the pressure of the fog—
infinite silence

Worlds unseen beyond the mist lead into other destinies: farm and field,
town and school; fast food off ramp and neon light—
Wichita Falls

I accelerate, but I am not moving

©2003

Dream Ships

(an old poem…)

The broken ships lay torn under black cliffs
Nailed to shore by Sea’s relentless hammer
Dead Gull silhouette floats in glowing phosphor
Blown about by Gale’s unending power

Water shudders under Sky’s turbulent embrace
Gray battles Grey at Horizon’s obscured line
No life on the Shore of Ghosts, no life here
Except me, the phantom-dreaming me

I stand alone and watch this scene buried in dark night
My breath the only life among the wrecks
Trembling under waves, my feet give way
The deck shakes, rocks—I try to look around

Feet carry me across upended planks
A funeral shroud of sailcloth clings to Mast’s broken arm
No recent death appears in this ancient scene
Everything here has always existed before me

I ask, “Why bring me here? Does this pertain to me?”
From Childhood’s nighttime terrors to Adulthood’s fever dreams
I’ve walked these planks all my life, a thousand times,
Asking only, “Where am I? What does this mean?”