unfinished poem for David Mehler

six wide white streaks of paint up the Snake Pass I am alive I have wired one heart to the brain alternator at 70 amps and I still breathe the sun coming up over the rocky south stray 24 potential volts of lead acid sitting lurking like a storm of alchemy a dragon rising below the next hump the same sun again coming up over Sheffield like new dawn Vulcan CityI can't do ahead in the truckle of dawn but don't you worry honey I'll be dogging it in nursing like Chandler with his big old Chrysler dragging a battleship over the mountains only bigger bigger crashing through your dreams a Lancaster Bomber breaking through the crystal spheres

into liftoff and we sail over the last grand arches then that oof of the air machine as it sends me brakes like a whale a stench coming out way below of clutch and rubber and sin and then the clear fairway down to Manchester Central easing it on in with the mirrors the whole thing gasping out leviathan steam all over the wet morning six thousand horses in need of a drink

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