It’s still out there

P.W. Covington

It’s still out there
You know…
On The Road

If you have the eyes to find it
and if you listen with an ear for futility

It’s in the turn lanes
Of the city streets
It’s in donut shops in mid-afternoon
In bars right next to nail salons
In bail bond agents’ waiting rooms
Laundromats always make me
Think of Ginsberg
and Alan Oak
That long walk to the highway
After they let you out of Del Valle Jail

It’s the cats crowding the dumpster
Behind the Taco Bell
It’s what churches and temples
Have always promised
It’s a paperback library
Started by GI’s somewhere
Surrounded by sandbags

It’s that same, sad, sweater
You’ve worn for decades,
Bought at a thrift store
Someplace that it snowed

It’s not trusting mirrors any longer
It’s learning that lies
Have always been here
They are aboriginal in our DNA,
Twisted
Terrorists behind every freedom
Liberty and anonymity are the greatest dangers
You should never be unknown
The lie of omniscience

The lie of God
The lie of Love
The lie of good and evil and loss and luck
The lie of truth is out there, still
On The Road

If you’ve earned the eyes to look at it
And you were born with an ear for futility