Johnny Plays It Like It Is Poem by Bob Bowers

Johnny Coltrane speed-drifts the corner
At eighty,
at least,
Lights out,
Heading for Route 31
on the backroads
Tearing up County Road 67
Slipping past the fairgrounds
Past the red lights
flashing
back at the Four Corners
Where he’d left them spinning
Left them wond’ring ‘bout that
ghost car
Shot through there
while they waited
Thinking they’d got him this time
But they never get him
never get it
As he cuts the lights
sails by silently
having disappeared
A blur flashing past their sight
Lost to them
While Evans Jones hits
his mandible manacled
Manifold manifest destiny
And the smoke of sound
Takes you away
too fast
Just right.


5/21/04