A Poem Entitled “Road Kill”

Posted by Jim - March 7th, 2016

Road Kill

 

argh)

 

(cows wag their tails

in time with Peter Gabriels’s

“Games Without Frontiers”

And I begin to wonder

if I’m feeling really good

or lost touch with something

like ‘consensus reality’

whatever that is…)

 

(I drive for a living

deliver newspapers

on a two hundred and fifty mile loop

through inflatable water slide rural finger lakes new york

and the stereo keeps me grounded

reminds me I haven’t really

left the Earth of my childhood

behind)

 

There’s a woodchuck

he’s been sitting every day

for the past week

beside the body

of his friend

      (or lustling?)

‘Smack dab in the middle of the road’

 

‘Possums die so ugly

every one of them

looks like it’d been dragged for miles

then tortured hideously for hours

but woodchucks look so peaceful

<like they’re sure they’ll be

re-united

with their splattered friends

and lovers>’

 

sometimes

I guess I’d rather

be a woodchuck

sitting in the road

hoping an eighteen-wheeler

does it right the first time

[ instantaneously ]

 

(I think there just might be a conspiracy

to cover all of new york state’s roads

in fur-

but, like most bureaucracies

‘they’ can’t agree on a time table

so by the time they add a third pelt

the first and second have blown away

                                   Jim Wellington

                                   June 21, 1989

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