A RoadKill Excerpt...

Still on the One-Oh-One speeding past

Santa Maria San Luis Obispo

The road still familiar still known

Not the perilous road of distant memory

Or even but not on this trip

Unknown origins

Perilous because the whine of tire

On asphalt becomes a chorus

Humming in your ear white noise that

Can lull the unsuspecting traveler

Onto the soft-shoulder demise of carelessness

Even the unknown can be known

As you become one with your ride

Moving in concert with it becoming an

Extension of your will desires curiosity

The trusted mount that serves as long as

You keep an eye on the fuel oil and coolant

You and The Ride becoming a

Rhythm working its way across

The back of the asphalt snake

Wending your way northward

Almost out of the northern suburbs

Of Los Angeles debating about the Big

Sur route of HWY One or staying inland

Past King City and Camp Hunter Ligget

Looking rundown under Bush 41’s

Peace Dividend neglected and

Dilapidated its barracks silent the

Motor pool empty save for grease spots

Dirty testimony to the once thriving

Post past the long stretch of oil fields

Where 101 once was a two-lane on

East side of the valley and a much younger

Raindog traveled past old barns with

Tobacco ads painted on sideboards

With the ghost of Karen Lang riding

Shotgun this leg of journey I speed along

Behind a Semi with black mud flaps

Tossing to-and-fro like window shades 

(page 14)