Quoted Price

Gulping down 6 cups of coffee
On a 4 hour drive
And it's a guzzled tank of gasoline;
A quoted price on time
                spent
To whip a froth on memories
And put your thoughts on ice

               "Man,
It's larger drinks and longer lines
Of yellow painted warning signs,"
              I said while running empty
As you coasted in on fumes

"Nah you see it's just the finish line's
An unexploded, aging mine
And we don't have a map.
              Shit."

Guzzling down a cup of coffee
And another tank of gasoline
A quoted price on time spent
Says, "Buddy, time ain't cheap."
             Shit.

Horizon Outruns

A silent man sits encircled--
     embraced by summer storms' arms.
And all alone he ages
Seething soft beneath the sample size

The size of smallness grows tense
And waxing tension swells against the wall
     And there--at the center--
   storm sprayed and stretched too thin
   a few too many times for reformation
Our silent man sings quiet
While his will and wallet bleed--
          still freshly somehow.

Accelerate and amplify--
Caught and swept along on currents
that so often outstrip the soundest plans
...a treasure lies at bare arms' reach
but only mind might stretch
when arms, encircled by storms
   (that always do overtake)
Can only reach down to clamp his knocking knees

Beside the bed
his dapper, ever-present devil dabs
     his always bead-soaked brow,
     each night keeping venomous vigil...

A silent man sits encircled
Entangled in summer storms' arms
Which, as always, overtook him.
And, by the way, he wonders indeed
if he just didn't run rapidly enough.
Yet all alone he ages--
--overpowered and pinned
   by the smallness of the sample size...