A Poem On A Monday

So long September. I didn't waste a single day of you. As proof, here's some pictures from last Saturday night...

 Tiny house, giant me. Found this doozy in Ames where I checked out The Zombies show.

 The Zombies in all their glory. They were masterful!

 Shelby was crowned Oktoberfest Bier Maiden, so after the concert we stopped at her place to pick up her sash and then headed to Oktoberfest, where her people needed her.

 This was before we got caught up in the haze of dancing to the punk/polka Bolzen Beer Band.

The tuba player with the sweet 'stache.

And since it's autumn and before we know it, winter, I thought I'd sneak in another road trip poem. Here goes:

Truck Stop, Vermont

It was dusk when he came through, a sky drunk on violet.

He knuckled his Harley across the lot, side car for his St. Bernard

worthy of a name like Winston or Kujo,

everything he owned tucked in packs that hung along the sides. 

Both wore 50s pilot goggles. If he was a postcard,

the caption would read Feed the Bone. 

He bought bottled water and beef sticks, let the dog

stretch his legs as clouds bent eastward and cattails

in ditches shrugged. 

A year was north of here, a road

I envied.  Patches of loosestrife and wild leek, dark hours

where the mind cannot be found by anyone, in a wind

and in sound that bristles the skin without end,

where the names you call do not bleed echoes.

You awake in first light, insisting like flint through

the hardwoods, the hour when hills are genuine.

Your clean breath known.

Casey Lord