Midwestern Roadside Longings (reworked)

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Critical Analysis #1

Midwestern Roadside Longings (reworked)

Ryan
Member

since 1999-06-10

Posts 297
Kansas

0 posted 1999-12-22 08:58 PM

(Well, reworked for some of you.  Some of you have probably read my original in the corner pub or over at the scroll.)

Midwestern Roadside Longings

I-70

Out in the middle
of our great plains
there's a stretch of highway
that's never known hills,
but just in the distance
over the curve of the land,
the rolling grasslands begin.
It's a lonely country
there where the bluegrass
knows everything about
you from the nights
of solitary driving.
I know about these plains
and they know about me
and this stretch of highway
will always bear east and
west into great hills,
but it still must pass through
this lonely place where
everyone meets themselves.

I-435

We slipped apart somewhere out
on the vast stretches of highway
that line the plains
to the west of Kansas City.
The dashed white lines and
endless rows of orange barrels
were too much for one of us.
So you took the first open exit
and I continued on into
the rolling hills never forgetting.
The endless plains were my
companions for those years,
and so now I've become one
with the Midwestern roadsides
you chose to desert so long ago.
Yet everytime I see the
city's glow laid out just beyond
the fiery reds and oranges of
another twilight horizon, I find
I still long for the pieces
of me that were lost
when we parted ways on
these divided highways
that criss-cross a nation.

K177

Everyone always tells me they
wanna get out of this little
place in the middle of nowhere.

There ain't no life in this state.

80 mph across the plains
with the sun caressing the red grass
that grows out there where everyone wants
to get away from.

That's where the life is.

Still, it's so lonely and I know why,
but I just wanna stay
and revel in the tragic nature
of this whole forlorn
state.

US 75

There are satellites in the sky
and if I look up at just
the right moment 185 miles south-
southwest of the big town I
can see them float over the
vast prairies as they thank God
they're up there in outer space,
best place for cold steel to live.
And sometimes the moon, full of
a soft midnight glow, will come out
& I can just smile and it can
just smile back and then maybe
all my dreams'll come true
or at least just one.

US 54

The mornings after are always the
worst,
      after the whole night's been
up wailing its blues
like an all night San Francisco
Kerouacian fairy tale and I'm
the only one that heard it
            and you're back somewhere else.

US 69

Just let me take to the roads
a while cause the pavement's
a soothsayer and what it's telling
        I can hear sometimes
        if I listen
just right and really want to.
It ain't just everywhere a
car can go 300 miles w/o seeing
a soul or a turn but still
     seem to get it all.
But those roads keep their
futures like secrets & when
I get back the words
    are never there.

But neither are you.

K57

An empty pay phone,
the first place my family's
past remembers working.
An old dying town reserved
for memories
and colorless photos.

The trees always fly by,
but in the ghosts of a
Midwestern past,
slow
and see it
     and smell the rolling
hills and grasses.

A graveyard sits on top
of one more hill,
its stone engravements old
and weathered,
the birds still singing,
the Grand Army of the Republic
still marching.

I-35

Semis and rust
and old yellow
busses who don't
carry children anymore
all line the roads
with their sad-eyed
broken headlights
to tell their stories.

But southbound around
the gentle curves is
enough of a song for
me.
        Carry me to
my promised land,
        or maybe just
        a little junction
of 2 lonesome roads
where I can rest my
weary feet awhile.

I've been longing for
too many years now, and
I gotta sit down.< !signature-->

I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till i drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.
—Jack Kerouac

[This message has been edited by Ryan (edited 12-22-1999).]

Brad
Member Ascendant

since 1999-08-20

Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea

1 posted 1999-12-23 03:14 AM

Ryan,
I remember reading this awhile back but I think it's stronger this time around. I'll try to get back to it later because I don't have the time right now to go into detail but I do have to say I think you've got some great moments throughout the poem but I think it could use a little (just a bit) of pruning.

Try to get back later. Glad to see you posting here. Hope you stay.
Brad

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