A Trip to the Beach
My attempt at "prose poetry"
A Trip to the Beach
We pass rusty gas stations, where lonely truck drivers gulp midnight coffee before climbing back into their transient lives. Cheap burger stands line the highway, the nauseous stench rising from the American meal. We bounce down I-97, and I roll down the window, tasting the salty sea. Is this our exit?
Seagulls, those beach vultures, defiantly squawk back at the waves, crashing in orchestration. You brush away the dune flies and doze off. I brush away the sand and look around. Middle-aged mothers smother their kids in sunscreen, send them off with a "be good," desperately return to their margaritas. The sizzling sunlight feeds their vain appetites and sunglasses shield those cosmopolitan eyes from the hungry gray beards clinging to wired trashcans, crunching cans and bottles. Those worn, wrinkled hands dissolve pennies, clutching for Lincoln’s blessing before retiring to the splintered shadows. Above the boardwalk, vendors milk the consumer cattle, obliviously chewing the cud. Splattering mint ice cream provokes pony-tailed sobs, fatherly comfort. I turn the page and collapse on a bed of Kerouac.
A Trip to the Beach
We pass rusty gas stations, where lonely truck drivers gulp midnight coffee before climbing back into their transient lives. Cheap burger stands line the highway, the nauseous stench rising from the American meal. We bounce down I-97, and I roll down the window, tasting the salty sea. Is this our exit?
Seagulls, those beach vultures, defiantly squawk back at the waves, crashing in orchestration. You brush away the dune flies and doze off. I brush away the sand and look around. Middle-aged mothers smother their kids in sunscreen, send them off with a "be good," desperately return to their margaritas. The sizzling sunlight feeds their vain appetites and sunglasses shield those cosmopolitan eyes from the hungry gray beards clinging to wired trashcans, crunching cans and bottles. Those worn, wrinkled hands dissolve pennies, clutching for Lincoln’s blessing before retiring to the splintered shadows. Above the boardwalk, vendors milk the consumer cattle, obliviously chewing the cud. Splattering mint ice cream provokes pony-tailed sobs, fatherly comfort. I turn the page and collapse on a bed of Kerouac.