Someday I’ll write the proper poem, with crescendoing thoughts

Like the end of a symphonic train,

Or the approach of a mile long freight

Caught at a vacant crossing on a desert night

Watching the stars twinkle to the signal gate alert

White, red, white, red, white, red

Like the gumball chase atop the village black and white

When the thin blue line gets stretched

And the interstate run for freedom simply gets arrested.

Every one has a poem like that simmering inside them,

Like the sulfure laden paint pots of Yellowstone

Discovering they are too yellow to travel far,

And so they build up presure

Like so much trapped steam

That gets vented in some prodigal geyser of emotion

Too hot to handle, too surprised by the timing of it all

To ever capture the essentials,

Overexposed, and undevelped like a drive-in movie.

There was once when I felt it didn’t matter what I wrote,

Or choosing which lane to drive

While sitting in an eight lane parking lot

During an oxymoronic rush hour or two

But that was when I really had no where to go

Like some hobo heroine reaching Key West

Eating out of bins behind five star resturants.

I felt her touch my cheek, just before she kissed me,

While I, sighing like that vagabond, knew I’d reached paradise.