A Not-so-Pretty Sight In Steinbeck Country

So the door of this car meditating at 80 Opens Lurching like a rocket's first flames It soon stiffens against the wind Feet swing out An absurdity so obvious It can't be helped Certainly not this man Nor the abrupt memories of any number Of stupidities ever committed in a life-- those mute, Insufferable tyrants that put you here in the first place Simply to drive, think things through. You can almost thank him When in no time at all the feet lower Do the Mashed Potato in quickening flops And slashes across the whirring highway Enough torque there to catapult the body Into a panorama of ancient trees and Van Gogh yellows These otherwise serene hills of Steinbeck Country caught By a certain off-off-and-away whirlybird man Tricked By his own risible devices once the corpse sobers the effect In a roadside ditch A coiling of limbs and prey To the gawking faces lit up in the swiveling lights. And the car Don't ever forget the car veering casually eastward Some eerie jetsam cast into the limned green expanse of alfalfa Ghost-driving under the deep faceless tombs of hulking Field jockeys There to bid travelers a fine welcome to Salinas, 101 South