Poem-A-Day #286 : Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation

Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation

The process is the thing

To see the car in the tree - the wood nails and glue

The idea of oil crisis - a sort of fracking
cracking the shell of the idea of a country

We want to see the yellow box on wheels as savior - we
want it to drive us to a future we cannot imagine


I pump the gas into the car that was bought as an afterthought

It is cold dark out and the station is bright

The truck across from me is empty - the door open - there is no one around

I hear the sound of the pump fulfilling itself


Saint Geraldine Elizabeth Carmichael

Our lady of broken promises of lemons and car making

Industry science and technology - I want to talk about
the abandoned - the people who held their money out
and felt the rain coming


Light the candles - there is the repetition
                    desire need poverty and fear

It is a sort of cycle

And then the promise of freedom that cannot be

The mind convinces itself of its cagedness

And she stands up and points to the horizon - and the horizon responds
with light and with lines of dollars

A moment arises - it becomes prophetic - cool to the touch

The process is the thing
at the end of it there is no result - the hollow space
of new event and new horizon

Ad for the 1975 Dale