J.W. Burleson photo / Boquillas del Carmen, Coah.

PHB

My photo
Brooklin, Maine, United States
We own a 1975 GMC Sierra Grande 15 in Maine and a 1986 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe 10 in West Texas. Also a pair of 1997 Volvo 850 wagons. Average age in the fleet is 28 years--we're recycling. I've published 3 novels: THE LAW OF DREAMS (2006), THE O'BRIENS (2012), and CARRY ME (2016). Also 2 short story collections: NIGHT DRIVING(1987) and TRAVELLING LIGHT (2013). More of my literary life is at www.peterbehrens.org I was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-13. I'm an adjunct professor at Colorado College and in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. In 2015-16 I was a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Autoliterate office is in Car Talk Plaza in Harvard Square, 2 floors above Dewey Cheatem & Howe. SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUTOLITERATE DAILY EMAIL by hitting the button to the right.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Don McKay & the syrinx of speed



Ode to My Car
 As if. As if it oiled your idle
notions, machined,
massaged them till there was no
clunk no hand me that spanner no
crank 'er over.
As if motor were simply the syrinx of speed as if
movie movie all you ever have to pay is your attention, focus
on the docudrama in the windshield, stay tuned
to the hummingbird who hums in the accelerator, in the cylinders
the six brave heart attacks are singing and the clutch
performs the sigh with which the lovers shift into
                                                                       more comfortable
positions:
                there.
Something has come from nothing, as if
a handful of its blackberries had been
gathered. Something in a tooth
deserves to speak in tongues. Something in a consonant
attends its vowels, as if
minuet. Synchromesh.
Momentum. Here lies the precise
mystery of transmission.
                                                             in Apparatus (McClelland & Stewart, 1997)

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