by Tricia Knoll
Nope. Don't have one. No breaks,
no plans, no backpedals, no forward go way,
scientists seeing climates
gone crazy, sideways, edgeways,
overblown, flooded, fired in heaps
of forest ash, a steady
climb up a particular way.
They testify, witness heads
nod to the words
coal in China, coal in freight
up the Columbia River,
chug a bunch, chug a bunch
coal to China, jokered
coals to Newcastle,
ashes to ashes. Dust to
dust muting the bell clap.
Saturday car ads big deal
35 miles per gallon can’t get
me to Newcastle with clean
air, can’t get me nowhere
I want to go in an orderly
way.
Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet.
Showing posts with label mpg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mpg. Show all posts
Monday, September 30, 2013
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
MPG
by Dawn Corrigan
For 6 years I didn’t own a car.
Then I bought a Jeep Cherokee.
It got 11 miles to the gallon.
As my friend Cameron said
when he took the job
at the missile factory
“I’m part of the problem now!”
Yet how quickly I settled
into driving again,
humming along
to Gnarls Barkley
on the 44-mile commute.
How the oil refineries
of North Salt Lake
glowed like enchanted castles
on the way home at night.
How snow packs formed
on the undercarriages
of the cars, then fell off
in blackened chunks
that dotted the highway
like sleeping birds.
How I imagined those birds
waking up, shaking the snow
from their feathers,
taking off for someplace else.
Dawn Corrigan's poetry and prose have appeared in a number of print and online journals, most recently at DIALOGIST, So to Speak, and Digital Americana.
For 6 years I didn’t own a car.
Then I bought a Jeep Cherokee.
It got 11 miles to the gallon.
As my friend Cameron said
when he took the job
at the missile factory
“I’m part of the problem now!”
Yet how quickly I settled
into driving again,
humming along
to Gnarls Barkley
on the 44-mile commute.
How the oil refineries
of North Salt Lake
glowed like enchanted castles
on the way home at night.
How snow packs formed
on the undercarriages
of the cars, then fell off
in blackened chunks
that dotted the highway
like sleeping birds.
How I imagined those birds
waking up, shaking the snow
from their feathers,
taking off for someplace else.
Dawn Corrigan's poetry and prose have appeared in a number of print and online journals, most recently at DIALOGIST, So to Speak, and Digital Americana.
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