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The Gas Hike Poems
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Poem by Richard Long
God or something keeps hurling these people onto the streets. And this one is insane and that one is dull. That one has a mangled face and that one has a mangled back. That one is some kind of hip doofus and that one is stressed out, tired, not himself. This one is so pure, so innocent, that one a zombie, dead long ago. It’s nice to get out of the city. To get out of the cars and off the roads and the streets.
That’s why these gas hikes are something special to behold. People will stop driving. And since poets are people too, s, poets will stop driving too. They’ll have to WALK to their menial jobs that don’t appreciate their specific gifts. After getting so used to walking to work they’ll want to walk even more, walk for fun. Pretty soon they’ll be walking out of bars and into nature.
Next thing you know ‘pine needles’ will replace ‘telephone wires’ in their poetry. Coyote tracks will replace pigeon feathers, the smell of eucalyptus will replace smokes and on and on. Look at Hamish Fulton, his titles are poetry in themselves. “A Seven Day Walk In North Eastern California Ending On The Night Of The October Full Moon 1981.” Or “A Two Day 59 Mile Road Walk Coast To Coast Across The Northern Peninsula Of Newfoundland Canada Summer 1976.”
Like Hamish Fulton or Richard Long or the Japanese wandering poets, two locals are walking the coast right now, Justin Davis and Ryan Fox and writing about it. Wilder Beach, Fern Grotto, Needle Rock Point, Table Rock, Sand Hill Bluff, Laguna Creek, Yellow Bank Beach, Bonny Doon, Panther Beach and on and on. If your feeling squashed by Ramrod, the God of Mendacity, you can visit some of their notes: “Breakfast downtown, old-time omelet and mealy tomatoes. Mugs of coffee. College girls, pretty but sad and a little hung-over.” Stuff like that.
These gentlemen are veritable revolutionaries. Right now WALKING is the new revolution. Tamil tigers? The Farc? Zapatistas? That’s one way. Maybe someday the old way. A Revolution now could be walking the countryside writing poems.
the farc vs. WALKING AS KNOWING AS MAKING // A PERIPATETIC INVESTIGATION OF PLACE
SPRING 2005 // UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
> http://atimeforwalking.wordpress.com/
> http://www.coastwalk.org/
> http://www.richardlong.org
> http://www.hamish-fulton.com/
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