Empty Oil Barrels

Calypso? Ex-slaves welded
junk the masters left behind
to outring cathedral bells,
music the heart’s corona.

Just like me and fast. Hell,
with two empty oil barrels,
I’d bolt up a Flinstone car,
find all the speed no money

can buy on the dry side
of the continental divide
and coast her to a stop
in the middle of Bonneville.

But, all this jazz and zoom
always has to fight for life
as it blooms from nothing,
and no one wants that. Why?

To me, money’s dull as paper.
but my girlfriend, angrydrunk
in her college’s cornball pub,
said, “You go right ahead—

be a mechanic! And spend
this life washing your hands
from the grease and blood
of hunting precious power!”

Most folks speak a baffling
language. So, I must guess
what she was trying to say,
“I don’t understand 185 mph.”

But that’s just the way life is,
like the sun is a hole, ablaze
with invitation for you and I
to get our bare skin to glow!

And if we fail, let’s fail once,
twice more! You know...
the physical as trampoline,
water as a lesson about dust,

dead of cash across the palm,
utter lack of words for true new
things getting done. Maybe this:
same as priests hunger for a kiss.