No Man’s Land

I leave Oklahoma City on a four-lane highway. The far right lane sign says it will close in 500 feet. Five hundred feet later, the far left lane sign warns that it will also close. I stay in the middle left bumper-to-bumper lane. Cars speed by in the far left and right lanes and disappear. Eventually, I realize that the road signs lied, and drivers have been speeding past and forcibly pulling in front of other cars. Now, all lanes are packed.

I ride the bumper of the car ahead, a white Chevy pick-up pulling a Sportsman Camper. It sports a window sticker that says, “Be a Flirt. Raise your shirt.” I consider it. My car temperature gauge is 104 f. A half hour later, left and right lanes open. I see a small town ahead. A sign warns, “One hundred miles to the next McDonald’s.” I enter No Man’s Land.

I see my 14th “Route 66 Museum at the Next Exit,” and the signs: Amarillo, 71 miles. Amarillo, 64 miles. I count 36 electric poles between House A and House B. Amarillo, 50 miles. Welcome to Gray County. It is raining. Near Groom, Texas, an ugly, cluttered little town, is an ugly, plain cross billed as “The Largest Cross in the Western Hemisphere.” A monstrosity, really, with the biggest gift shop I’ve seen in long while. Nearby is a water tower labeled as Britten, USA, that leans like the Tower of Piza. “Where am I?” I wonder.

Amarillo, 40 miles. Amarillo 35 miles. 79 electric poles between homes. Cows huddle in patches of shade. The smell of horses and cattle lingers from Oklahoma. Amarillo begins to feel like a lost civilization, a strange thing to say about a city in north Texas. The longer I’m in Oklahoma and Texas, the stranger things seem to get. At a gas station is a twenty-something woman dressed like Alice in Wonderland buying cigarettes at the counter from a man who looks like Mr. Clean with a nose ring. Two men at the gas pump wear belt buckles the size of hubcaps. After a while, my perspective becomes Oklatexed and I’m thinking: Somewhere in this world, the great grandson of Count Dracula prefers to drink a cold can of diet blood.

I know I need to get out of Texas and Oklahoma. Oklahoma City is too much like Kafka’s description of it. Everywhere I stop for a break in Texas, locals at the tables talking about God always seem to be conforming to each other: “Being good won’t get you into Heaven. Being nice won’t get you into Heaven. Being compassionate won’t get you into Heaven. Being respectful won’t get you into Heaven. Being tolerant won’t get you into Heaven.” I’m thinking, if Heaven isn’t filled with the good, nice, compassionate, respectful and tolerant, who’d want to go there? Why not just stay in northern Texas?”

Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

I arrive in Oklahoma City at 1:00 a.m. I’m beyond exhaustion and can’t find a hotel room. There’s a coaches conference. There must be 20,000 coaches, every public school’s head coaches, assistant coaches, special coaches, coaches for baseball, basketball, cross country, football, soccer, swimming, tennis, track, volleyball and wrestling, middle school, high school, community college, university.

Next morning I go to nearby Denny’s for breakfast. They could have been holding the conference there. You can’t miss them. Stout shoulders, military haircut, developing pouches, school colors, enormously muscled calves, loud voices and lots of eggs. Most have had broken noses, sport a facial scar, and throb their jaws like John McCain.

On the return trip, I stop in Oklahoma City again. There isn’t anywhere else to stop. Again, I search for a room. A police conference and a horse convention are in town. In Denny’s, they all look like coaches. Except the horsemen wear spurs on their boots to keep people waiting in line behind them from standing too close.

As I travel, I realize that I’ve watched too much of Jeopardy, Password, Wheel of Fortune & other game shows. I’m full of esoteric knowledge. It’s as if my life has been a pursuit of trivia. But I figure it will come in handy someday. When St. Pete meets me at the Gate & tells me I have good references but must pass a quiz to get in, I’ll be ready. Who Invented the Cotton Gin? George Washington Carver is most famous for which invention? How many times a month does a snake crawl out of its skin? I’ll know the answers.

The Tired Hand

On a recent car trip through New Mexico, I stopped near Alamogordo for lunch at a cafe called “The Hired Hand.” It had lots of ambiance. On one dining room wall was a sign, “I’m on a thirty-day diet. So far I’ve lost 15 days.” Last weekend, their ice cream scoop was missing They believe a ghost hangs out in the kitchen and took it.

In three more days, “The Hired Hand” will feed no more mouths. The friendly waitress, with plain blue tattoos on both wrists, has worked here for 18 months, and never missed a day. No one else lasted more than a month, she says. Elton John is singing, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on the radio. Above the urinal in the mens room is a hand-sewn notice: “I aim to keep this bathroom clean. Your aim would help.”

When I first entered Alamogordo, just past Holloman Air Force Base, the first business I saw was an adult video store, its parking lot filled with pick-ups. It’s probably located as close to the base as zoning allows. This area appeals to a lot of retired veterans.

It may be that in a military retirement area, an adult video store will always attract more customers than a cafe with a ghost in the kitchen, but I think “The Hired Hand” closed because of its name. This is just my psychological view. I’m not a Jung man. I saw the adult video store first, and was probably thinking unconsciously about it when I arrived at the cafe, and looked up at the sign. Instead of seeing, “The Hired Hand,” I misread it as “The Tired Hand.” My reading was, no doubt,a Freudian slip, but I no longer had an appetite for a sandwich you eat from your hands.

Clothing-Optional Getaway

Once in a while I need to leave town, option a luxurious vacation resort, be anonymous, and relax. I went to Virginia the other day via internet to save gas, then optioned a quick side trip to Key West, Florida. It took less than five seconds to go from Virginia to the southernmost city in the continental US. Internet travel at its best.

Once there, I took the IPix Virtual Panoramic Tours to Bahama village, Clinton Square, and Higgs Beach. I also walked poolside at a clothing-optional hotel for men. I’d guess that the other men were between 40-50 years younger than me. I wouldn’t take off my clothes around them. Kind of like revealing that you were a chimpanzee before you took up golf.

But the beach, pool, hotel and rules provide that ageless attraction of seeing how the other half live, the photoshopped half that lack bald spots, or a bridge of false teeth. They spend loads of time in the fitness room, have little in common with my everyday life, my aches and pains--an altogether different kind of morning stiffness.

Mr. Lane Changer Chased by Trigger Fingers

When Mr. Lane Changer glanced at his rear view mirrror on University Avenue, while also talking on his cell phone, he saw two crowded lanes of trigger fingers aiming at him. They were undeniably unhappy with his driving, darting dangerously in & out of traffic, speeding ahead, slamming brakes, rushing forward to be first at the red light, first to cross the intersection when the light turned green.

His heart was thumping. The trigger fingers were pointedly closer. He could hear their thump thump thump as the front line rode his back bumper, his Christian fish and yellow ribbon bumper stickers unable to protect him from their road rage. He saw the light changing, and as green appeared, he blasted across the intersection.

But halfway into the next block, he was pulled over by a local police officer. The officer detained him, and issued him a ticket. Thus, Mr. Lane Changer was saved from the passing trigger fingers, who otherwise, would have caught him, surrounded him, and been very happy trigger fingers indeed.

Clean the Crosses

My friend, Joe, sits in his backyard. A dove lands on a branch of his shade tree. His cat, Luna, notes the winged meal but lazes contentedly. The wind flutes through the branches, banks into a fence where a vine grows undistrubed. Joe occasionally hears screeching tires on nearby Missouri Ave. as people make their way to work. Nature can inspire Joe to write beautiful poems.

My friend, Dick, sits on his deck, admires the Organ mountains while the setting sun casts a lavender sheen. He imagines all the rooftops in his view forming waves, his deck becoming an ocean liner, his plastic lawn seat a sturdy captain’s chair, his wife standing near the bow, hair billowing sensuously in the early evening mist. Nature can inspire Dick to write beautiful poems.

My inspiration is a bumper sticker. A lawsuit was filed against the city of Las Cruces (City of Crosses) to remove crosses from official city logos. I go to Walmart, park next to a van with a bumper sticker that says, “Save the Crosses.” I agree with the van, “Save the Crosses,” but I wonder if the bodies could be removed each day before sunrise. They upset most of the tourists.

God is Now Your Friend on MySpace

I received an email this morning. Its subject line was, “God is now your friend
on MySpace.” I knew God had a sense of humor because I checked out his MySpace page. Instead of a photo of Himself, he had a portrait of Himself by Michaelangelo. It was painted a long time ago. God probably looks a lot older now. Also, I thought the index song that plays when you download His page might be “Adventures in Paradise,” or something similar. It’s Eric Burden and the Animals’ doing “House of the Rising Son.”

I’ve often heard average people say that no one really knows which path leads to God, but I do. I was searching for a poetry site on the internet called, “Shaking Like a Mountain,” a cite that wants poems about songs. On SLAM’s Myspace page was a friend listing for “Dead Men Interviews” which I’d heard about somewhere. The interviewer, Michael Stusser, will ask of painter Frida Kahlo, for example, if she might consider a brow wax.

While listening to these Dead Man mp3 interviews, I saw a friend listing for Historical People, so I clicked the link to that page and there was “Cyrus the Great” whose bio I had seen the night before on the History Channel. I went to the Cyrus the Great’s space, and there, among his friends, was God. I sent God an email, asking Him if he would be my friend. He responded promptly and became my friend #281. He’s not a “Top Friend” yet, but who knows? It could happen. Anyway, that’s the path I took to find God.

I recently took an Internet Trip to Save Gas

I recently took a trip on the Internet to save gas. If you have ESL, it’s also the smoothest way to travel. In 45 seconds, I went from Las Cruces, New Mexico to Monticello, Virginia. At Monticello, I booked a multimedia tour of President Thomas Jefferson’s grand home, admired his art and natural history collections, and had a splendid cup of Simply Smooth coffee on the Southwest, or Garden, Portico. What a great vista! And just the right amount of cream and sugar in the coffee.

I sat in his tea room too, with its fine view, though it was a little chilly. Still, a blanket over your legs and I imagine breakfast would be great here, maybe listen to a little news on the radio (local, not pseudo-intellectual ), drink hot green tea, eat something from the garden, maybe read a poem by Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson. The tour lasted almost forty minutes. It would have lasted longer, but I’m a fast reader.

I love these short day trips. I learned a lot, spent almost nothing (one cheap souvenir), didn’t get sunburned or winded, sand in my shoes, lost, there were no long waits at the airport, no suitcase to pack, my clothes didn’t get wrinkled, I wasn’t pick-pocketed, and my feet aren’t tired. Plus, I didn’t meet a single person I didn’t like. Heck, I’m so rested, I could go again tomorrow, spend some time in the Dome Room.

Explanation for this Blog series

The middle section of my book, SUGAR TRAIL, features a series of prose poems. This blog will follow-up on that book with new prose poems. My prose pieces draw from every day experiences to which imagination is added, and I work them to contain one location, one event, one point of view, and a little humor. With few exceptions, a poem will run no more than the equivalent of one page. Shorter is sweeter. This said, I invite you to read my blogs.

P.S. The Burning Man is the Title of this blog, but the name was already taken as an internet address. I have a poem called "The Burning Man" and may use it as the title of a future book or CD. My address is Dancing Skin because that's also an upcoming title, and it was available.