The Master of Speed and Time

Surfaces wet and slick, shining in the cold lights of the nightly run
to flow past beneath me.
Music: music from the years unbought, on dusty shelves, with water
from the night drifting through the agéd cracking notes
the ferrous oxide hissing its smiling memories through the deck
while the amphicentral dragon
rumbles
and growls its way through the night with the
master
gently
shifting
its
path
until it is locked in tight and burning, the dissolution of the barriers
a palpable thing! Going, going
gone, past the blurring smear of watercolor sepia on the blackness of the flat
which follows you as you drift past and stare idly into its heart
and the torchlight telecaster stands above you and laughs its approval
New Jersey looks different tonight, washed by the rain or maybe the lights
that scrub its surfaces clean of white and leave it wholesomely grimy instead
an honest visage for the night
and the 707 rotates alongside me clawing for its home
with the thunder of a lost and lonely lover
which tears at my world
to leave only me in its wake
the master
of speed
and time
as the white shocking weal of a lane marker hems me in
I lock the whispering wheels down its center
I can put this car anywhere at 65 or 70 miles an hour
I can feel it singing to me through my hands
I wish I was flying
and then I could be done with the lines
and the weaving paths of the night
that I must follow
home