Tug Dumbly # 19 - Headmiles

Headmiles

You’re moving, physically moving

past all the signs – Speed Kills

Don’t Die for a Deadline –

but the mind spins on

like a bogged tyre in mud,

spattering the same old matter,

that tatty shopping list

of fret and resentment,

a tracking independent

of the mechanical you

clutching between

butchering B-doubles.

It works the back catalogue

like the radio on auto dial,

white noising between stations –

jazz, classical, great slag heaps

of FM gold (hits’n’memories,

tits’n’mammaries) –

clearing brambles of static

to happen into fresh patches

of ancient gripe:   

remember this one … who could forget …?  

all those obstinate dead

burring the mind,

twisting into you

like barbed wire

grown snug in the fat

of an old farm Coral.

Don’t Dream it’s Over.

No, you’re right Neil.

It can soften and lift like weather,

only to flap back down

like crows to roadkill.

The odometer ticks on,

another bug spatters –

bet he won’t have the guts

to do that again –

and you gotta smile

at the memory of the old man’s joke,

smile at your insect self

and fidgety ungeared

mandible mind,

just smile.