Gasoline

The price of gas – just think of

What it has cost us, miles and

Miles, gallons and gallons. It

Once made sense. I recall as

A teenager buying a dollar’s

Worth for a night out – same

Station had a cigarette machine

A quarter a pack. Imagine how

It was heading out for the night

Four gallons of gas and a deck of

Cigarettes. Who could ask for

More than that, but it happened.

Prices in the driver’s seat and we

Became poor ride-alongs. Last

Time the prices went way up, we

Began talking about smaller cars

And less driving, even talked about

Public transportation, but when

Prices went down a bit, we became

A country of SUVs and pickup trucks.

Driveways filled up with our sense

What is essential – gallons and gallons

Miles and miles. We have learned to

Consume and complain without doing

Anything but consume and complain

As miles and miles go by and gallons

And gallons we buy – the price of gas

Just think of what it has cost us.




              Out Shopping

Grocery shopping, we wait our turn

picture the gunman setting up

getting ready to shoot, to live-stream

the action we make, he makes.

How long before we begin to run

scream, try to hide, our whole lives

flashing before our eyes, how long will

it be, how many of us will get away

become survivors, witnesses they will

ask about him and how he appeared

before and what did he say, shout as he

began becoming the lead story?

This is Friday grocery shopping. Here we

are trying to get a jump on the weekend

a task accomplished – and there he is trying

to get a jump on what he wanted

wanted to accomplish – the first few are

carefully picked out of Produce, the rest are

random, much like our grocery shopping

might have been.




           Cut to the Car Chase


Shoot-outs, we grew up on them,

war pictures, cowboys and rustlers,

gangster films. We’ve seen it all, so

when they happen around us, they

seem almost scripted. The guy, whose

sad face we saw on TV last evening,

tells the expected story about the masked

intruder who he chased off, then on

a car chase, three towns long, shooting

out his window, like some action star,

a budding Clint Eastwood, shooting as

they tried to get away. The passenger got

hit, didn’t make it to the hospital, and

now our shooter gets his TV moment. His

story holds together as well as any other,

a few shots to explain, charges filed, and

of course the pictures, the car with a blown

out back window, the roadside, and our

hero’s sad face, his bloodshot eyes. They

say it’s drug related, like most of these tales.

They are always seem to be scripted that way.





J.K. Durick jdurick2001@yahoo.com