full, with a tank of philosophy
and black coffee.
we took back roads,
like cheap poets, to places
time breaks chains to flee.

tuning radio frequencies. staring straight.
avoiding discussions, intimate conversations.
hearts beating around  brown axle orbits,
across the flaking continent.
tire drones and hums. rotations of rubber.

the sun rises,
with mad sightings and camera diaries.
coloured buses, country kids kiting,
they offer sky-on-red distractions.

crossroads with old droughts.
isolated islands
of please slow-down
concrete. bullet holed signs.

porch-sitters knitting,
and rocking
and in town halls the
dusty ploughers gather to gossip,
rumours of rainclouds.

its dark on the plains,
i piss with the craters of the moon
and the wind.
sleepy fence posts hold wonders
and age and cattle.

the prairie heat
shimmers like a fluid dream.
dry, cracked earth holds stories
of the future, land palmistry.

and a truckstop arrives, here we
are aliens. and u.f.o's
and traffic lights
are the same kind of rare.

along the corrugated dirt,
the huge lid of blue,
is the history of all things.
signs to man. we notice artifacts,
we talk, turning heads
like sideshow clowns.


we took back roads
like cheap poets,
and our hearts bled the land.