Monday, May 05, 2008

Jimmy...

Chug, chug, chug...goes the groan from the hood.
Lurching forward, forehead to seat...
Clunk, goes the head to the side window...
Boing, boing, boing, top of the noggin to the roof.

Swirling cotton white wisps of morning burn, slip out of the window crack. Sweet fragrance, ashy, dirty, dark and mysterious are those left overs, all falling out of their metal bed, like crumpled soldiers, no longer standing to attention in their paper carriage. Held strangely, greedily...lovingly to the mouth with ease and satisfaction.

Belching plumes of earth trail us down the mountain,
evidence that we are near, we are coming or we have gone...

Winding, serpentine path up or down, off the side of the road to who knows where, goes the...gravel, fine dust, rock littered road. Rushing by driveways that lead to houses that never seem to house people. Mysterious trails that lead to mansions, retreats, haunted houses, axe murderers, crazy people...or, beautiful girls.

Yellow like a vagrants nicotine stained mustache...chipped like teeth, smooth and tough, big and homey, just like the old man behind the wheel.

Yellow like the coming dawn...yearning, I would sit by the window, waiting for a glimmer of Jimmy’s skin bouncing up the road. Only visible through the far off trees that stand as gates at the end of the spaghetti long road. The road that forever will and always did, stop right at the feet of grandpa and grandma’s house.

Jimmy...my childhood chariot, noble steed...that carried me to the castle of the King and Queen of the mountain.

(Eric Blauer, 5.5.08)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just this morning was thinking of you at mamas and what it meant to you. Funny, I dont even remember warrens truck..which is what my thoughts were this morning..how different times have different imprints on each of our lives. But I can follow the path of the awesome reflections of the dusty windy road to mamas, I can feel it smell it remember it in each season so clearly.... and I miss mama ...love you

Anonymous said...

yes, it's strange how memories are different. i remember riding inside the truck and looking out the side window, but i can't recall what the truck looked like from the outside. too excited to go and too young to look back i guess. it was a castle and they were all nobles who lived there. thanks for your poem and memories. -matt