Sinister: Mile 2,992, a bit anticlimatic...

[JD Stephens]

Hi all—
As threatened, I am writing from the current end of my jaunt, mile 2,992,
for now, and am happy to be living no longer upon Jarlsberg and
peperoncini, but at the same time can acknowledge the value that travel
does have upon us as individual souls. Ha. Get me on gin and ask me about
Wisconsin (no offense intended to Badger-State-Subscribers, but come on).
So, my last post, and also my first post, was composed in various bits of
Montana, and sent from somewhere in Minnesota, and now I am in Maine,
where the light is lovely and the retail is brilliant and the weather is
as predicted. But still the memories of my trip resonate…
Not least the long and Frappuccino, um, enhanced? night spent speeding
across the Great Plains of North Dakota with B & S in heavy rotation
still. I know for a fact that I was actually visually hallucinating for
much of that, um, seven hour span, but in a GOOD way. I promise. And of
course not in consequence of having taken any drugs beyond caffeine and
lactose and glucose.
Now that I have finished another pointless degree, I feel fully qualified
to apply for a small business loan and seek to open up a poem repair shop.
I hope that my first client will be the admittedly lyrical but ultimately
incredible writer who would seek to rhyme ‘slag’ with ‘Prague.’ I love her
posts, but am I alone in believing not a word of the fairy tales she
spins? They all read like a Mark Helprin story. That’s a compliment, but
then again, no one would mistake his fiction for reality, any more than I
believe the candy-floss world Pauline L. Shivers (her REAL name?)
describes, peopled as it is with mythical, larger-than-life Great Aunts,
heroic I-prefer-true-love-to-massive-inheritance stances,
Adonissian-yet-repugnant-Italian lads and all.

And while we’re on the topic of the unrequited, the Laura Llew poem was
fraught. It both energized and agonized me, the composition of this oeuvre
did. I mean, think about the risks inherent in crafting verse in a rusty
’89 Subaru rocketing across vast expanses of America in the lonely dark.
Just hours prior a mechanic had laughed lightly and said, “I wouldn’t
endorse this vehicle for any long trip…” But the main obstacle to literary
greatness, as in any mind, was internal, not to be found in the logistical
difficulties.

Those of you who may have quibbles with the meter might think of the
opening lines of the Iliad as recently translated by Fagles, or, maybe
more productively (if you can stand it) track 5, vol. 1 of “69 Love Songs”
by Magnetic Fields.

Verse follows. Abort now. Save yourselves.

A Poem, as Imperiously Demanded, for Miss Laura Llew, Composed Mentally on
I-94 Between Custer, MT, and Mandan, ND, and Finally Committed to Paper at
3:15 am on 13 August, 2000, on the Glen Ullin, ND, Off-Ramp:

In eastern Montana
In haphazard manner
I  pondered Miss Llew
I was real low on gas
And the prairies were vast
I’d be stranded, I knew.

Near the Dakota line
Shone a well-lighted sign:
“24-hour fuel”
I exited off
As the car gave a cough
The night started to cool.

I’d be driving all night
So I filled it up tight
And got ready to fly.
I had plenty of gas
So I thought of the lass
But I didn’t know why.

The crisis averted
My thoughts they reverted
To sweet Laura Llew
Although it was pleasing
I could find no reason
I hadn’t a clue.

I was back on the road’
In my usual mode
(a little bit blue)
But the Starbucks was rawkin’
The speakers were squawkin’
And my thoughts stayed on 
Miss Laura Llew

Sorry again to those of you who hated the tautology thread. I didn’t
realize what I would unleash, though I was impressed by the level of
erudition my simple query brought out of you wonderful and entertaining
people. Thanks.

Schatz



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