the queen's english

it was bleak today on the hi-way of tears...another accident and another mangled car...the sky doesnt seem clear on days like this...the police stumbling and bumbling with the flares, the e.m.s workers waiting for a casualty, and me driving to the airport...as i passed the scene i thought, man i am glad i am not the mangled...relying on people who were duds in high school to revive me...not geeks, no, e.m.s workers were never the smart ones...they were the ones that majored in gym class...but i guess their intentions are good...i kept on moving, just like the dirty semis, and sad s.u.v.'s, on towards the port...not like in the old days when the port had substance, had character...back when the queen would break a bottle on the hull and we would all sail like gentlemen and ladies off to the new world or the old one...sipping champagned ceilings worth of chandeliers...spending a few days on the sea letting it all set in...the movement, and the change...a real change...these days it's a night on the tarmac, stewardesses looking at you crook-eyed for ordering a plastic airplane bottle's full of some chemical tasting spirit...realising that when the plane thumps its engines and goes tumbling into the abyss, you are going to perish next to jimmy from des moines with a tray table full of frozen turkey on your lap...there is no honor in that...there is no searching for the north star, no tranquility anymore...it is from the hi-way to the terminal to the air and repeat...i realized recently that in the middle of the atlantic there is a place where you can see the stars better than in the utah desert...out on the waves, gliding soft as lace, the world holds its mystery...here riding on the cracked concrete of the day, there is no mystery, only empty miles...