Solitaire
Then he ran away,
the forest going by him
like a motion picture
and the road slid
beneath his feet
until he stumbled in a ditch
beside a small meadow,
hardly a lawn,
with stiff green grass
tough as barb wire,
around an abandoned
plank shack inhabited
by rats, near a shallow
rocky river in the north
of nowhere, and stayed there
with nightmare
and pack rats and water
and wet chocolate bars and cigarettes
until an engine came
and took him back again
- John Newlove
the forest going by him
like a motion picture
and the road slid
beneath his feet
until he stumbled in a ditch
beside a small meadow,
hardly a lawn,
with stiff green grass
tough as barb wire,
around an abandoned
plank shack inhabited
by rats, near a shallow
rocky river in the north
of nowhere, and stayed there
with nightmare
and pack rats and water
and wet chocolate bars and cigarettes
until an engine came
and took him back again
- John Newlove