dream 1014; no exit

still night,

midnight blue highway,

straightjacket railroadtrack.

loops of road passages

distant time tunnels,

car and driver settle into the rush of wind,

dreaming about home somewhere out there.

still night,

midnight blue highway,

drunken Noho bar,

drunken car,

driver nods off fighting sleep,

prisoner marching off to the gallows

submitting this night will be gone forever.

clutching onto consciousness

driver slips away,

now he and car moving together,

lovers gone mad,

highway straightjacket railroad,

dreaming in eternal sleep

resolutely haunting the irrational.

then lost in a labyrinth of streets,

driver and car race out of control

awakening to terror,

machine and man moving together

only rushing wind ahead,

loops of road passage

forever out of control.

and so at dawn the inevitable City time tunnel

swallows another thirsty passenger,

death dressed in his black river and yellow mountains,

No Exit.

NYC

1984