Poem 371

The journey between Wellington and Rotorua is one I’ve made many times and often by myself … this is in the tank-like Hillman Superminx, my first car, given to me by Jill’s father after it had done years of service for him … it became increasingly difficult to urge it up the hills and I can sense my reluctance to stop in case the car doesn’t start again … five hours is that stage at which driving becomes both mesmeric and surreal … am I moving or is everything moving around me? …

( I really like the muffler sitting in the middle of the road as if it’s an offering to the gods as well as being a symbol of some poor unfortunate’s bad mechanical luck … I think I invented the word glassens but I like it … )

Hoping Only To Outrun The Rain

The engine has been on
five hours
                     behind me I draw thinly
                     the crackly invisible veil
                     of exhaust
I would have died from by now
if I'd never left
the garage
                       momentum dies
                       on a hill the red wand
                       groaning back
                       behind the day wadded tight
                       in humidity
I try to fly
like an insect out the black o-mouth
of the dead brown centreline muffler
offered to someone's journey
but ahead
in the sky of blistered skin
the air glassens
around the sun burning further in
burning further away

torn black rubber
shredded tyres of clouds
vulcanize
in the fields fanning out
animals breathe pieces of death
and the car ceases
its heart attack sounds
thudding and missing
at the crest of the slope
there are only the valleys to go down
into
         already
pooling night
out of puddles of shadow