and I was driving on the thruway which was pretty empty after eleven
and I was imagining the host of Night Rhythms alone in a dim studio and shivering slightly at the thought that he was currently haunting so many cars at once with his choice to play 'ghosts among us' by the two man band of synthesized cello and guitar. And i was wondering about the specific statistics that someone gathered somehow that let them know how many people listen to NPR after eleven on a friday night...
I was speeding. And its unfair that they build cars that are able to speed and then also build alcoves into highways so that cops can hide and get you when you speed.
Why, is it possible for cars to go fast and also possible for drivers to become distracted? Why is possible for bodies to break?
And because I was speeding and alone in my car on the mostly empty highway-
And because the highway was like a tunnel made of streetlights-
And because at certain hours and in certain states of mind
streetlights are like the figureheads of ships with long necks leaning over canals-
because of all this
I was thinking about how my car and the other cars were all like sad lonely whales-
And because of all of this
I decided to and then did, say out loud "Bodies are breakable"
Because I wanted to say it out loud
Because its easier for me to remember something that I've heard with my ears rather than something that I've thought
And I wanted to make sure I retain enough of it- the whales and figure heads of ships ect- to write it down when I got home-
Whales and the radio host sending out blue ghostly signals to a certain statistic of people listening to NPR after 11-
And all this is similar to a bus driver driving through the suburbs in his off duty bus.
And all the empty seats sit in the dark behind him and hold the potencial for people and are symbols of people
and at night in the dark symbols and potential can easily become ghosts.
and the bus driver is alone with all this person symbolism behind him in the dark
And he stares straight ahead behind his flat windshield under the neon banner that says "No passengers" which now sounds like a bad joke.
Anyway I spoke out loud but couldn't even hear myself
because the radio was turned up so loud because my car is so noisy that i cant hear over the sound of the car
so I have to turn the radio very loud to hear it.
And so I couldnt hear myself say "bodies are breakable"
and I was alone in my haunted whale car on the highway.
And I realized how much I really wanted someone to ask me about the whales on the highway
So I could tell them about the car that was parked on the entrance ramp coming off the palisades.
The car didnt have its blinkers on, just headlights, brights, shining at a dramatic angle out across the highway
and I interpreted it as sort of passive aggressive... Like the car was a quietly pathetic whale
saying "help" really softly and with wide staring eyes but then not explaining what was wrong.
and all of this is because they were playing haunted music on NPR and lately I feel trapped and paralyzed inside my own inability to explain the poetry inside my head.
And anyway the image of car-as-whale is actually stolen from my mother who said it first in San Francisco last summer about the busses. She said "they're like friendly whales. Like baby whales following mother whales" when she was too tired to drive and i made her let me drive. and i drove over the golden gate bridge for, maybe, the third time that day and i tried to be impressed with the bridge because i love the bridge even though i had been in San Francisco for almost a month at that point which was long enough to feel like the bridge was just for crossing the water and not for admiring.
