---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v116) (the March / April 2013 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Entanglement (a Down in the Dirt collection book)		get the 340 page Jan. - June 2013 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Looking Inside a Car on a Winter Sunday

Robert Heath

Looking inside a car on a winter Sunday is
Exorcism and deep and biting as any snow
Drifting off of the Peaks like crystalline
Blankets
Laid out to cover everything except the truth
Its only when you have nothing, you notice that
Everything is owned.
Walk amid the clamour of near Christmas
Shoppers giddy in a whirl of purchase
Like it was a drug and you are
Invisible
Indivisible
As wanted as a chipped mug.
Always left in favour of something else
You want to know who your friends are?
Try being homeless or going to prison
Or failing that a mental asylum
See who turns up in
The magnesium glare of your nadir
See who is not
Too busy
Or on the cusp of a meeting
Or just about to partake of dinner
And they have had a hard week and
You know how it is?
Maybe next time – yeah?
And they wonder why you drink.
Why you hit needles in your arm.
Why you try to make it all go away.
Ever been to a shelter to be told you can have a bed
So long as you don’t drink
And tell the guy on the desk that you drink
Because you literally have nothing and it hurts
And then watch his thin, implacable smile
As you realise it’s a no.
“Come back when you are clean buddy”
Chicken and egg they call it
I call it being pissed on and left to rot.
So looking in cars on a winter Sunday is exorcism and God.
A moment reflecting on an inner sanctum
The brief ecstasy of somebody else’s world
A world free from the cloying ache of want
And whatever ills befall its owner
It’s not this
Sitting in doorways and drinking
Yourself to death
Fuck, how you imagine yourself in that car
Hands on the wheel like it was girl’s ass
Just lording it up as you see the you
You thought you could be,
An owner of things,
A doer
A success of sorts
And you dream your dreams and hold time still
But fleeting
Like clasping water in your cupped hands
Until a voice rises behind you
A siren of the fates
“Hey – get the fuck away from my car you fucking dirty piece of shit”

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...