USA

e__5@hotmail.com 

Highway Ghost

Into the velvet darkness
My Altima and I streak like panthers
Trying to make time
Curious idiom: time simply IS,
Not to be made or unmade
By the exigencies of humans
Another cookie cutter rest stop
Pasty trucker faces
Needing another caffeine jolt for the road
“..that blankety-blank four-wheeler
needs to stay off the blankety-blank road..”
(are they talking about me)
the mountains hump their dinosaur silhouettes
snugly against the night sky
soon their black integrity will be corrupted
by insidious dawn
what is any sane person
doing out in the intergalactic void
at zero dark thirty?

I have accomplished my mission
I have put “Randy’s Dream” and the picture I drew of him
Right into HIS sacred hands
Tom Petty chronicles small-town Indiana boredom
And Mary Jane’s last dance
As I pull out into the corridor
Blinking away the “white line fever”
And hoping not to become an item
In tomorrow’s news

("Randy" is the lead singer of the country group ALABAMA)

Randy's Dream
(or Random Thoughts While Waiting For his Autograph at Fan Appreciation Day)

Five minutes to showtime....

He looks in the mirror
before combing his hair....
And he's not there!
The corporate entity "The Fans"
with bulging eyes, cavernous mouth
tongue desperately protruding
has erased a piece of him
with every autograph...
Every smile...
Interview...
Concert...
What does he have left over
for himself
or his family?
"The Fans" are never satisfied
(if i can but touch his hand...catch his guitar pick
as he throws it to the crowd
i will be healed....)
He must always be "on"
never allowed a bad day or mood
He needs "The Fans" to adore him/leave him alone
sometimes he doesn't know
which one he wants....
He, Teddy, Mark, and Jeff
have birthed this monstrosity
out of their need for fame and fortune
If they feed it, it is still hungry
if they starve the beast,
it will "fire" them
--HEY, RANDY, GET THE LEAD OUT! WE'RE ON!--
He drags himself away from his non-image
and assumes the position as fan fodder...

My Born-Again Non-Experience

"When you ask Jesus into your life,
He will change it",
the Jesus People said.

My best friend Mary Joan asked Him to come in --
and He exploded His presence into her heart!

I asked him into mine--
and he sputtered and fizzled like a wet firecracker!

"I don't feel any different,"
I protested,

They responded,
"Just let everyone see the change in you."

WHAT CHANGE?!!?

I am still my immature, socially inept, disturbed self,
the personification of every negative stereotype
of Christianity
if-you-don'­t-believe-in-Jesus-as-your-savior-you-will-go-to-hell
trying to work up his presence in myself
you-have-to-accept-the-lord-
i-have-a-personal-relationship-with-Jesus
if-i-say-the-words-loud-and-often-enough-they-will-come-true

Do I really want Jesus, or just the "experience"?

He didn't reach inside my brain
to change my personality, cure my emotional problems,
or
take the permanently engraved "kick me" sign off my back.
(never mind that doing the above wasn't in the contract)
"Kathleen, you should have read the fine print,"
whispers the still, small voice.

I "witness" to others
that Jesus can do this and that
they ask me, "How"?
In attempting to answer them,
I fall into a black hole of ignorance

"I don't know what is so great about God or Jesus,"
I cry out to the non-hearing believers
they dance clichés around me praise-the-lord-anyhow
god-said-it-i-believe-it-that-settles-it
the-rapture-will-happen-soon-will-you-be-left-behind
the-world-will-end-at-any-time


the rapture hasn't happened yet
the world stubbornly refuses to end

If someone doesn't do his job, you fire him.

So, I fired God/Jesus
(couldn't reconcile the two disparate images in my mind)

I was left with no one else to blame
for my personality defects and character faults
I couldn't even say "goddammit"
(how can anybody who doesn't exist damn anyone?)
no entity to call upon in times of trouble
no one to thank for the good things that happen

I lost my "faith"
like a pair of socks in the washing machine
or an old suitcase at the train station
(she-was-never-converted-in-the-first-place)
it took a long time to stop trying to find him
but let Him find me instead.

© Copyright,  Kathy Egan.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.