inroads, byways & gravel driveways

inroads, byways & gravel driveways


mas,

wondering what it is about these paths
makes us think we've got to map & measure
what we're sure changes even evry time we pass

but i'll find something soft enough
to lay my head on
in the driveway, dust is the pillow btwn stones
and above the onrush of celestial unreason
stoneage teevee, meaningful pinpricks
all sorts of bewildering wilderness confusions
lead naked apes down all possible paths
by foot or cycle; propeller or paddle.

pine needle carpet; a cold swampy mess.
a hot hot long parking lot; traintracks that end.
highways that connect to highways
that connecto to highways... divert
divert to the twisting two-lanes & discover
it's hard to be efficient following
the tight contours of the countryside.
topography of riverrun and water fall.
evry dim meander is a road.
evry atlas an encyclopedia
of misdirection.

how can you be right to go
to that strange and distant place?
what'd you ever lose there?

if evry doubtful byway is another
to get there
and the atlas has never held enough detail.

there's that unknown thing with infinite names
that never name it
this desire, that desire.
question. that question demands an answer
& that answer was the question in the first place.

if a highway exit is a sortie
the french for an outing
american for a fighter pilot's mission.

the bourgeosie ride a gilded carriage
to a small hillock (miss muffet's nearby)
for a picnic with a view of battle.
they look out over crumbcake
at something they dont even realize
is happening in front of them.

if a farmer come by and tole em
would they care or listen? if a gypsy
come along and sung the song of battle
could they hear above the din
of slurping curds & whey?

if a highway exit is a mission
a sortie into the unknowable suburbs
of the upper middle nowhere
that looks reamarkably like
the lower leftern somewhere

even though the climactic difference
really only has to do with the weather.

leave the geography alone.
quit askin so many kweshtuns.
somebody with opinions like yrs
best know when to keep his mouth shut.

if a highway exit is a mission
if a sortie is a picnic
if an atlas is an exit
evry exit is an in.

dint find my road
so i took em all.

they skirt round the mountains there
and come back to the circle
while others head off yondah.

well, i guess it wasnt this exit
i knew i shoulda...

if a book is an exit
you know the way in
off a cloverleaf
on luckynumbered highways

let bygones be
& keep yr ear to the rail
nose to the bone
shoulder to the stone.

put yr back into it man
cant just leave it
in the ditch like this
that's noway nowhere.

*
expatiate: (L expatiari) to go out of one's course
wander; 1) originally to roam or wander freely; hence, 2)
to speak or write at length; elaborate or enlarge (on
or upon).
*

what i thumbed across while i lookt for the definition
or inroad. where does an inroad go? in geography? on a map?
an inroad is a sudden invasion or raid
like a sortie, a mission, an inrush
more direct than a byway or gone
an unmappable mission
thru not completely hostile
but completely confused
territory.

we expatiate (as opposed to expatRiate)
push our feet
on thru the heavy pavement;
elaborate our shoes
til they stay on.
there is no need
to enlarge or enlengthen the roads
they are interminable, incorrigible, imperturbable.
they call and crawl to each other
they are the constraints
webbing & netting
themselves about the many tangled limbs of entropy.

and we walk the ley lines of empathy & forgetting.

what'd you ever lose there? as though to say
you better oughta lose somethin
afore you go lookin round for more.
never ask a question
til there's no other way.

you need to lose things
to find things.
seems like something
a simp or philosopher would say.
even if it's a lot more true
than 'what'd you ever lose there?'

i've never known what it was i lost
when i ws never there before
just because i ws never there before
doesnt mean i wasnt.

best know when to keep yr mouth shut.
that's good advice.
hide & watch.

best know when to keep yr mouth shut
timing is evrything
& some things are better left unsaid.

if you know when to shut yr mouth
it should be easy to talk.

taking the lay of the land
you got to have a way

if an atlas is an exit
evry exit is an in

didnt find my road
so i took em all

if a book is an exit
you know the way in

you got to have a way of seeing & saying
evry way out is another way in
when all you remember is what evryone else forgets.

bridging burning breaths,
a