I have given myself time & driving hear 
(in my head) 
    a former employer: “If you’re not early, you’re late”  
(on the speakers) 
    a 1984 sample from The Art of Noise in The Prodigy’s “Firestarter”:
 
// hey, hey, hey // 

Driving, I am thinking of samples    
                rich with implications– 
                        echoes extending outward 
                                from their origin 
                                        transferring energy
                                                
                                                    // hey hey hey //

Tapping the steering wheel with my thumbs,
    a genetic sample/duplicates of my grandmother’s,
    (a child memorizes the hands that cook and bathe and hold)
I retrace how recently travel triggered panic in me 
    (how someone moving away has always felt like heartbreak)
    (how an inciting event can echo for decades)
and how it’s taken a few years to reroute my brain

// hey, hey, hey //

&
I am Driving again!
&
I have given myself time
enough to not accelerate through curves,
though I still hear
(in my head)
    Dad: “Remember, you always have your brakes”
(also in my head)
    a 1983 sample from Yes in The Art of Noise’s “Close to the Edit”
so
I Sing:

// don’t deceive your free will at all //

as I arrive
    neither early nor late

In the first grade, I was a fire-breathing dragon.
The path to school was cold and treacherous, and
I exhaled plumes of smoke with icy lips, because
foul-mouthed boys chased me into the unknown.

In the second grade, a penguin with a talking hat
befriended me. A jolly good fellow! She was a loyal
companion. Her hat was too—but not by choice.
He was glued on, and he was always grumpy.

In the third grade, the universe chose me.
Worlds created at my fingertips, BIG and WIDE!
Creatures served me, characters loved me.
My world bends at my will, at my control.

God is not a man, but a child.

They came
with starched shirts
and smiles full a teeth.
Like them sharks I’ve only seen
in the books at school.
Same one I had to leave
‘fore I was finished with year eight
to help mom and pa with the harvest.
They came and they talked and they taked.
They had pa sign his name
just a scribble
he ain’t know his letters
ain’t know just what he signed away.
“Mineral rights”
Seemed like free money
and you don’t even lose your land.
When they came and started tearin’
into the hills and hollers
I’d roamed and played
we didn’t understand
the trap they’d laid.
Thirty years later
pa’s back’s broke
he can’t hardly breathe.
I’m afraid
same fate’s comin’ for me.
Boss gets fat as a brown deer tick
I pult off my hound last fall.
Same hound I had to put down
cause I can’t hardly feed us all.
The coal’s dryin up
rail cars hardly comin’ through
seems the comp’ny’s bout to pull out
they’ve picked us clean
drained us, too.
Same way
those politicians up north started to do.
They ain’t never stopped.
Treatin’ America like a coal town
what all can they extract?
How deep can they mine?
They don’t care what they destroy
don’t live down here
in the dust and red dirt, anyway.
What can they take from me
what all can they take from y’all?
The rich get fatter than deer ticks
suckin’ the blood right out of the country.
They’re comp’ny men.
You and me- we ain’t part of their comp’ny.

Heartbeat feverish
Yet tumescent drums suppressed
Otoscope needed

My brain is buzzing
always looking for something
big or small
to keep it flying, floating
never resting

I devour information
from morning to night
The hunger never pauses
the torment always there
tingling the back of my neck

My body may be still
but thoughts race on
Miles and miles
The places I could reach
if my feet matched my mind

No medal I earn or words of praise
shine bright enough 
to illuminate the path
where accomplishment
and contentment always outpace me

You put your

I have never been one for video games.
Oh, I liked sitting at the two-sided
Ms. PacMan console table
at Wildflour Pizza in 1985
with my dad or sister
but I was just guessing,
punching buttons at random.

I think it’s because I can’t see
their inner workings, like algebra
(the devil’s code, which
I chose to ignore until
it went away in college).

I was smitten with geometry-
I could see what we were measuring,
it involved gathering proof,
making an argument,
one of my favorite activities.

I suspect neurotypical brains
run like a skeeball machine-
the goal clear and linear,
you hit your target or fall short
but you knew exactly where
you were aiming the ball,
just a matter of practicing form,
holding steady, applying
the correct amount of force.

My brain is more of a Plinko situation,
its course unpredictable, even to me,
falling in a series of ricochets
toward an unknown destination
once gravity inevitably wins.

On hyperfocused days
(by which I mean nights)
my brain is a Rube Goldberg machine,
taking a creative and time-consuming path
to achieve what I’m sure looks,
to an outside observer, like a simple task.

I mean to push the button on the coffeemaker
with my finger, but somehow I
drop a shoe
onto a switch
that activates a fan
that blows down a string of dominos
that inflates a rubber dish glove
that pushes it for me
and in that moment I realize
I forgot to add the water
and also the grounds.

I missed Father’s Day, Dad.
Sorry…… I miss you.

My dad taught me how to play 
the ponies.  He taught me to swim
and jump off of the high board.

He taught me to play Black Jack
and Gin Rummy.  He taught me to 
ride my new 24″ Schwinn
when I was 10.

My dad worked at Wiedemann
Brewery in Northern Kentucky
He taught me to like limberger
Cheese on rye w/onion.

My dad lived with his mom, my
Grandmother after the divorce.
I walked to his house every weekend
And watched live wrestling on his little TV.

My Dad died young, only 45,
still just a kid at heart.
He was a chain smoker, Camels
and Lucky Strikes.

I’ll always remember,
he made the most beautiful smoke rings.