Highways and Roads: Quasi Poem and Sketch

Highways and Roads: Quasi Poem and Sketch

by Armando Ortiz

He was a desperado bumping gangster rap

down a deserted road.

Playing it loud, smoking sacred tobacco,

he rode waves of heavens old.

Coasting at 80 miles per hour

the dribble of the tom drums

became an acoustic ba-boom.

Wagner melodies spoke

through the synthesizers,

telling of Percival’s epic journey.

He stepped on the pedal

trying to outrace the sun,

sweat beads gathered on skin.

Houston screw overtook the beating

Of his heart and became

one with the blue.

Driving faster,

as the sun set

and the car neared

the evening orange.

He was a desperado driving fast down a deserted Sonoran road. Tobacco smoke and gangster rap dissipated with the desert air. The dried up leaves being handed to him by an old Navajo shaman. The car rolled fast on the petrified ancient road that once was a Paiute path. A landscape of jagged, sun weathered mountains that resembled dried up pumpkin pie could be seen at a distance.

The gas pedal held the humming motor at 80 miles per hour, the dribble of the tom drums blasting from the speakers immediately became a single boom at the distance. To the lizards and snakes on the ground, the Cadillac was an object that was hard to detect. For the vulture and black crow the quick moving creature was an alien on the ground that traced the earth’s contours. In an instant the car was there, and was gone, only the wind that shook everything was evidence of the chariot of fire that seemed to be blasting some otherworldly music.

Antonio, while driving these long distances put on Wagner’s epic symphony, Parsifal and his journey through life. He wondered if he could outpace the sun. How fast did he have to drive to momentarily beat the sun, and see time paused for an instant was a question he always wondered about while lying on his cot, and looking out at the horizon.

The heat was unavoidable, and that is what he preferred. He carried a cooler on the passenger’s side, and there he kept ice water, and some juicy oranges that refreshed his body, and crispy apples that were crushed with every pressing bite. Cool snacks made the sun bearable at times. Nonetheless, sweat beads gathered on his skin. The shimmer made his brown skin look like polished bronze. His was usually like an old weathered penny, but at times like these, it seemed that it had been born that day, fresh off the metal press.

Symphonies of the old German composer became beats from Houston, the slow and half asleep bass gave him a nauseous feeling, but also blended well with the dry oven heat of these areas. At times it felt that he was becoming one with the wind and the emptiness of the blue.

He drove faster, adding a few digits to the steady speed he had kept the last few hours. He felt he was nearing the cool brown mountains of the north, and slowly merging with the evening orange. Night was fast approaching and this is where he would make a bee line to next city. In the darkness is where he felt the car pulled the fastest, and the chill of midnight helped it hum without a problem. At night only he was alive and his flicker gave life to everything from music and to all the thoughts and desires that came to his mind.