Going the Distance

from Perfect Sleeping Weather by Larry Fulford

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Scrawled into notebooks from the familiar comforts of temporary homes and the passenger seats of mechanically unsound vehicles adrift on the highways and back roads of America, Perfect Sleeping Weather is fifteen years of thoughts, observations, facts, and fictions hammered into a collection of poetry that, according to one reader, "sounds like a sigh."

In this, his first book, writer/drummer/comedian Larry Fulford reflects on the usual -- life, death, love and leaving -- while still managing to name-check Van Halen. Twice.

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lyrics

I was in line at an ATM
when I realized I’ve developed
a distant stare, not unlike
that of a Vietnam veteran
or a cheetah after taking down
and ripping apart a gazelle
or a man after shooting another man
for breaking in.

There’s an age and an agony behind these eyes
not of hate, but a lack of anything.

It’s easy to dub them “blank stares”
and push them out of the way and
into the street.

You and I have more in common
than you or I would care to admit.

Dirty shirts
torn jeans
rebel yells
from the inside out
and shark-like eyes that gaze
for as long as the light will allow
without registering what’s in sight
but think
"There are bills to pay ...
there is only turkey and one piece of bread at the house ...
there are starving kids in other countries
and in this country ...
see Spot run ... "

Catching a glimpse of another
one of these stares is paralyzing.
A mirror on a neck with a wig on that
and maybe a hat.

but think,
“I’d rather be fishing ...
I’d rather be a fish ...
I’d rather be staring at the backs of my eyelids
than at walls or at the back
of this guy’s head ...
incapable of blinking
or looking away ... "

Perhaps we develop these stares
because deep down we’d love to be
chasing gazelles and tearing them apart
or bombing huts or shooting some asshole
in the face for invading
our space.

Not exactly the creative race.
All of our pin numbers are birthdates.