Thursday, August 13, 2026

Mike Turner

As Through Fog

 

We are driving as through fog

This corporeal plane shrouding

The totality of existence 

We make out faint lines on the road

Reflected in our car’s headlights 

Struggling to discern speed or location

As ghostly outlines pass

Knowing only that we are proceeding

Inexorably forward into the mists

Yet all around us

Just beyond the murky haze

Stands the brightness of Truth

Of Being, of Beauty, of Unity

Awaiting our transition

From gloom to clarity

Whence we shall leave behind

These clouds of mortal coil

And emerge into clear, diamond-starred skies

Until then

We are driving

As through fog

On our way…




Old Cars

 

Gimme old cars

Not these ubiquitous SUVs

Lined up like formless jellybeans

Color their only difference

No, gimme verve and style

Chrome and white-walls and fins

Huge engines that tear up the quarter mile

Slurping gas like iced jugs of sweet tea on a hot day

Packard, Hudson, Cord

Studebaker, Auburn, Plymouth

Rambler, Pontiac, Olds

Mercury, DeSoto, Edsel, LaSalle

Wind in our hair, fire in our bellies

Cruising The Strip

Gathering at the drive-in

Stealing kisses on Lovers Lane

Bench seats, neckers knobs

Three on the tree, four on the floor

Four-barrel Holleys, Cragars and Hurst shifters

AM radios tuned to the Wolfman

Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Elvis

Rock and roll and R&B and doo-wop

All on starry summersnights, so long ago

Yet only yesterday

Part nostalgia, part imagination

Part American myth

Now up on blocks in a dusty garage

Or sitting rusted-out in an old scrap yard

But still gunning in memories

Of RPMs and lost youth

On the back roads of our dreams



 

[untitled haiku]

 

first driver’s license

“Dad, can I have the car keys?”

teen rite of passage

 

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