Coming Back From Grand Canyon

Coming Back From Grand Canyon

Driving into memories, in wide-screen clouds.
Sculpted, layered, buffed and highlighted;
In golden blue, red, grey and silver too!
What can you say, what can you do,
Beholden before largesse celestial?
Beauty available with endless refills -
Could even California afford
The gratuity such skyscapes demand?

Later, the ghosts of Route 66
Take shape, in the dark and headlights mix
Of a Nirvana tape on an empty road.
No radio signals to encode
Our emotions in a chat'n song flow.
In a strange car, in a strange land - The Doors grow.
Still can't find a station on rock'n roll's road.

We're driving late and fast into the night,
Then brightness erupts, in a wailing light.
Window down - 'Er, sorry Officer', voice
On knees. 'Didn't you see me in the road
Back there?' 'No' No, honestly - We did
Probably, but don't stop for car jackers;
Or anyone else for that matter.
In media-gunland, where they're all crackers -

Even the policeman's packing a piece.
Mmm, perhaps I shouldn't have said to Sue,
To ignore those lights in her rear-view
Mirror, but, I mean, how was I to know?
'We're English, you see' That explains it, so
If you don't mind Officer... Oh no,
He's getting out his book - much apologies,
Explanations and smiles, which end in a fine.
We're nicked but not wounded, toeing the line;
Slowly, quietly past the interstate signs.

Date mostly written: 1996