Forgive Me

Billboarded landscapes keep me disgustedly amused as I travel the Interstate —

Corporate con men offering the morality of merchandising to a spiritually-starved populace.

The radio is mumbling something.
I turn it up.

It’s rap “artist" Mini K.
He “sings":

Strip the garland from the garbage
and the tinsel from the trash.
Take the ribbon off the rubbish
and adornment from the ash...

He’s right.
For what remains?
An emporium of emptiness.

Mini K continues:

Tchotchkes and knickknacks,
gewgaws and gimcrack...

I pass by a group of vultures enjoying a roadside meal served up by a fender or tire.
Beyond them a sign; a giant golden M in the sky attempts to lure me yonder for lunch.
I envy the birds.

My car needs attention.
It tells me by way of a crude dashboard symbol that it’s thirsty for some petroleum derivative.

Look there!
Another sign reaching for the clouds.
This one, a large yellow and red exoskeleton of a marine mollusk.
I must to the pump — in good time.

“Whoa!”  I say to my horseless carriage to slow her down for the exit.
The brakes help.

The car’s navigation system chastises me. It thinks I’m a free-wheeling idiot.

I pull up alongside a 21st century watering trough,
and shove a nozzle down my automobile’s alimentary canal.
I feed it fuel drilled or fracked from some foreign land.

Forgive me, earth.

I start the car up.
It emits its special brand of flatus.

Forgive me, air

Look!
Next to me a woman pulls up alongside another trough.
Her car must be thirsty too.
She’s very attractive.
“Hey baby! Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Why not?
You’re hot!"

Forgive me, William Shakespeare.

I could use some grub.
I forgo the urge to enter the golden arches and figure I would fare no worse with the fare from the service center.
I make a foolish choice of a chili-like concoction emanating steam and god knows what else from a witch’s cauldron.

Single, single. moil and mingle;
This mess tastes like that stuff on a shingle.

Forgive me again, Bill.

I’ll soon emit my own special brand of flatus.

Back on the road I reflect —

There is still beauty in life.
There is still quality.
There is still worth and value.
There is still art.

This poem notwithstanding.