Thursday, March 30, 2006

From Beeing To Uncertainty

I like reading maps.  A while ago I was reading a map of Texas, and I saw a few items on the map that seemed interesting to me - provocative, even.  These were interesting place-names.  They sent me to Google Maps to learn more, and then to my notepad, and eventually I found that all that cartography was turning into a poem, and here it is:

From Beeing to Uncertainty

Out in the middle of all the everything
a man can’t help but be right there
reality can overwhelm
and the opposite of nothingness
is being in Bee County
I think we sometimes all wake up
in Beeville, down in south-east Texas
a bit too real for our liking
a cold sweat on our cotton sheets
a petrifying need to flee
to someplace that’s a little less
a place that can admit essential
mystery
or someplace anyhow that’s not
so goddamn real
as Beeville Texas
and the opposite of Beeville
is Uncertainty
so you start driving east one short block south
of the body of Jesus
who lies with Sam Houston
but since this is Texas
it’s His street you take
east past Deaf Smith on your catfeet
escaping next through grasping Cobb Webb
next comes Goliad, battlefield
on your left, the waters on the other side,
now you’re into open country
don’t linger in Moody
unless you’re a swinger
storm Port Lavaca, debouche on Highway 59
Zac Lentz Parkway, Lake Texana
Ganado and the Spanish Camp
exotic names that amplify
the pang you feel in Beasley-Needville
that town that makes you need to be
but you’re bound for Uncertainty
just barrel down that Southwest Highway
straight past Houston on the Mobius Belt
Eastex Free Way, Humble little spots
Hill & Dale and Bedspread Road
get some coffee in Splendora
don’t be tempted by the lure
of those that offer easy answers
Security or Cut-and-Shoot
a Shepherd leads you, Hallelulah
in Corrigan the road’s your Home
you find your quest has grown to suit you
pause at Fiberboard Lake’s broad vista
drink it’s vast surreal beauty
and keep on driving
Burketown, thence 287
69 around Lufkin and 59 out
till you’re south of Nagadoches
in a clutch of homey little places
Freedonia, Gasaway, and Lamp-lite
fetterless and luminescent
grab a postcard to remind you
getting into vaguer regions
loop clockwise, take 259
northward through Mt. Enterprise
let its ethic slip behind you
you still quest is for something truer
more true for its very vagueness
as you go through Henderson
43 splits like a photon
through a prism full five fold
just focus on the middle course
the road is rising through the foothills
take it on past Brandy Branch
ambrosial stream
and lo, Elysian Victory
is yours at last
the Karnak Highway
clouds your mind
just get to Rayburn
Cowpen Road
and welcome to Uncertainty.

Now that you’re here
what do you plan to do about it? 

I will think of this as I drive through those all too familiar cities and towns. I’m going to read it again and I will have more to say.

Sounds like a Texas I know.  Whenever people have asked me to tell them about Texas-leaving the question at that-I am left with too many answers & too little time.  You have pointed out, quite well, one of the aspects about Texas I have always had a laugh over.  As varied as our placenames are, so are our people...quirkiness thrives here-although in some places, unfortunately, it is slowly dying out.  Great poem...I’m glad Anna passed along the link.

That was great! What a ride!

Thanks for not getting me stuck on the Mobius Strip!

Weeee, what fun!

i’m uncertain what to do now....

In Oklahoma, there’s a place called Lottawattah. I always figured a band of indians rode over a hillside, looked across the vast, empty prairie and there laid a Grand Lake. They exclaimed, ‘That’s a lottawattah!”

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