Highballin' by Bud Kelly

This is a poem I wrote while driving across New Mexico in the early 80s. It's kind of a mood poem, describing an experience that I could never forget. It's in my book West Coast Sutras.

HIGHBALLIN’

 

   Ticking off the miles through hell-black night.

   Bearings: Albuquerque a hundred and six miles,

   And Johnny Cash singing Cocaine Blues

   All the way from Tulsa.

 

   Coffee served up by a sad redhead,

   Some miles back in Gallup,

   In a bar selling busts of Elvis.

   Smoked a joint in the parking lot.

   Now country songs of busted hearts

   Braying all the way from Tulsa.

 

   And a perfect twenty percent chance of rain.

   Floating along.

   Bennied-out eighteen-wheelers shooting by,

   Lit up like Christmas trees.

   Rolling along,

   I don’t care where.

 

   Some Colonel Sanders still in the box.

   Tumbleweed blowing across the headlights.

   Hours yet till dawn.

   And by amplitude modulation

   A lazy benediction comes

   All the way from Tulsa.