Gratiot Avenue’s
throat throbs
The Loop
lifts us higher
We vanish
in hallucinogenic delight
lost
in deadly terrors
thrashing machines
Stop rocking. Sit
still.
Tow trucks buildings wings
swirl around us dizzy
speeds
scrawled against the windows
our weak watery eyes
amazed the voice
of the angular-faced bus driver
explodes over the intercom
The
city can
make you blind,
make
you see,
hear,
feel things not really there
Chew the windowpane, swallow,
swear Windsor is holy.
Find icons, shrines everywhere
even in automobile
assembly lines
The bus driver laughs
like sobbing
tells us this
city
screams
like a steam-saw
Steel shed
on the lake
You can
see it
so
clearly, so clearly
This...
you... everything ...
wants to keep going
He seems euphoric
mumbles a tune
sounds like Thanks for the Memory.
Bruce
Alford is a reviewer for First Draft, a publication of the
Alabama Writers’ Forum. He has
published fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry in journals such as the African American Review, Comstock
Review, and Imagination & Place Press. He has also published a book of poems, Terminal Switching
(Elk River Review Press 2007).
He received a Master of Fine Arts in
fiction from the University of Alabama and was an assistant professor of
creative writing at the University of South Alabama from 2007-2011.
"Bad Trip" can also be found in Bruce's book Terminal Switching.
