III: You Need Motors to Fly

The modern city is the car.
The car brought wealth to our two anglo-dominions
and power to many states. It straightened
out the roads and flung the crawling
suburbs out and forced the buildings to grow
as flat and plain as asphalt. Broadway
boogie woogie, says Mondriaan; bugger us
all, says Ford.

Only a male could have conceived the
endlessly plunging piston and there
is no way none that you can smell the
roses while the car sucks wind. On a
quiet morning while the ash tree meditates
on blossoms and the maple spins its keys
as I walk the dog I feel the breeze of a
lone corvette flutter my pant-legs on my
calves, a hiss of seduction into
flight.

This is the city right enough, a zoo for
plants and a semi-legal after-hours club
for people. The rusted underbelly of an
over-heated traffic jam on the rattling
rocky buzz of my oldie-goldie CHUM carries
me to work and back to a night of beer
and dance and love. I remember my uncle
on Crystal Beach as clear as though my
mind were psychic sitting high on an old
convertible skimming along the flattened
sand and hooting at the girls. He got
one with lipstick as red a girl's first
menses and eyes as uncertain as his
own, while they explored the fear and delight
of their awakening adolescence in the
backseat of a car.

So ride me to songs of
synthesizers and clutched
guitars. Play loop de loop
with the future and the past.
That pale cigarette will burn
my hide too.
I will slide
I will glide
I will fly
I will die
I will try
I will try
I will try
in my car.