There is No State You are In (A line from the Koran)

Highway, a paved retrospective in sun shining night
Every aspect of human life blowing in the debris
that collects by the side of the road
I’m somewhere in there
Exits, parking lots, paths leading into the trees
The flowers that grows wild in the median
Are like lilies on the soul of America
Stretching past the morning

Murder on the highway, travels by night
Running without headlights
Parked under the overpass
I’ve been there even when it rained
Weakness repeats in God’s hand on man’s
From the obscurity of a bridge over dry land

An intimate procession of cars and trucks
Piling their exhaust into mine
The distances like artifacts of my youth rolling
Over the cuts in the road
Trees and grass, wildflowers zooming past
Reflecting in my eyes pressed against the glass
But now I sit at home and watch as the traffic
Comes down the road
Far away from a highway I’m waiting
And I can hear the highway in my dreams
Traveling toward another experience
Cut and drawing blood
Below the seams


- Chris Mansel