Road Trip

1.

 

(What You Listened To Before You Were Born)

 

Nostalgic for a time and place that has never been,

you are lying in the back seat, idly gazing out

at the grey metal skies, and the road signs

all read backwards along the interstate,

but who cares — it is all passing,

like a thought, like a memory.

 

It might be a Sunday afternoon, it might even be

that time that never really was, except there is this feeling,

a sensation of traveling without moving, a kind of dreamy loop

that will never break out of itself, never be more than it is.

 

Still, there is a vague comfort in the nondescript monotony,

a warm atmospheric embrace, like what we all listened to

before we were born, before we made any tenuous decision

to assume some form — just that hypnotic serenade of tires

gliding along the highway, a lullaby of mechanical sighs,

without any meaning or necessity except what it is,

and not really wanting it to be otherwise.

 

2.

 

On the car radio, they keep playing a song

made popular during the war.

 

It doesn’t really matter which particular war —

they are always fighting, always killing each other

in their dreams, while the band keeps playing

the same damn songs, and everyone ends up

singing along despite themselves.

 

You are not really listening, so absorbed are you

in your own warm boredom, in the flickering movie

playing on the screen of your eyelids, and it is enough

to pass the time perhaps on this interminable road trip.

 

In the film, you are focused on trying to get somewhere,

but it is never clear where that is, or even if it is an actual place.

 

This may be one of those movies that end up haunting you,

even after you have woken and exited the neural theater.

 

It may return again and again in disjointed fragments,

like the nagging guilt you experienced in childhood

for some offense that might today seem trivial,

and yet you can’t quite shake that unsettling feeling

of having done something wrong, even now.

 

The preachers all say “Let go, let it all go”,

and yet you can’t, it keeps returning, like a distant voice

trying to tell you something, maybe something important,

but you can never quite hear — the noise of the road

is too loud, and the song on the radio, that one

they keep playing over and over . . .

 

 

3.

 

A streaming parade of images,

relentless mind traffic,

all empty of any self-nature,

just passing cars in the twilight,

headlights approaching, tail lights receding,

and you can barely keep your eyes open

as your head slowly nods to the side,

and now you are asleep.

 

In the rear view mirror, your body looks abandoned,

just a lump of your likeness involuntarily shifting

back and forth, now this way and then that,

timed to the motions of the traveling auto

as it makes its way through

the descending dusk.

 

Here in your dream you find yourself rising up,

ascending high above the interstate,

above the snaking traffic below,

 

and now your are flying through the sky,

unconfined by gravity’s grip, soaring

on wings of mere intent —

so exhilarating!

 

Then somehow the scene starts to fall apart,

it breaks into fragments that quickly dissolve;

you know it’s been said and here’s the proof —

whatever begins must surely end.

 

The sensation of motion itself has ceased

as the cool night air floods in from an opened door

and a new reality arranges itself for your attention.

 

Now a shadowy face leans close to your own,

it’s vaguely familiar, yet still indistinct, and their voice —

soft but insistent — is repeating in singsong refrain:

 

“Wake up, my little sleepyhead — we’re home!”