i drive with a cold breeze,
soft jazz streams through my car
I feel transplanted
The warm colors of sunset
wash the landscape in a brilliant
display of warm light
a red hue in the distance

The jazz music reaches a sorrowful tempo
and the ruddy colors line the near dark
streets I drive along
I am in a forgotten Scorsese film
The red lined streets
seem to be coated in a thick sheen of blood

I see violence everywhere I turn
an elegant lady trapped in light
is a gory picture of a ravaged women
covered from head to toe
in a grisly splattering of blood

The tranquil Miles Davis is a surreal
juxtapostition in this violent scene
I am disconnected from the world
i float as a witness of hell
untouched by any of the depravity
a shield of horn and percussion slowly
beats around me.

As the light fades from the sky
I am rescued from my imagination
and wake from my reverie outside
the city in a sea of blue and purple
the only grim reminder to the scene I witnessed
a dieing cow in the distance
trapped with a broken leg in a cattle guard.

09/01/2003

Author's Note: workshopped and revised

Posted on 12/28/2003
Copyright © 2024 Travis G Finborg