On Negative Capability

      Whitewalls  Mudflaps

Late night howling down

   a dark dirt road   Headlights 

killed and so the world gone 

   black but for the two blunts 

lit  illuminating Jojo’s fake gold

   grin    One girl each  screaming

from the backseat  we raced

   the red moon  rawdogged

the stars   His mama’s car

   my daddy’s gun   Public Enemy

Number One   Seventeen and

   simple  we wannabe hard-

rocks threw rudeboy fingers

   and gang signs at the sky

Blinded by the hot smoke

   rising like the sirens

in the subwoofers   blinded

   by the crotchfunk rising

from all our eager selves   We

   mashed in perfect murk   a city

block’s length  at least

   toward God   toward God

knows what  when  or why   

   neither Jojo nor I  nor our 

two dates screaming   had a clue 

   or even care   what the black 

ahead held

                        Come road

   come night   come blackness

and the cold   Come havoc

   come mayhem   Come down

God   and see us   Come

   bloodshot moon running

alongside the ride  as if

   to warn us away from  as if

to run us straight into   some

   jagged tooth and jackal-throated

roadside ditch

                         When Jojo 

   gunned the gas  we pushed into

that night like a nest of sleeping 

   jaybirds  shaken loose and 

plunging    Between our screams

   a hush so heavy   we could

almost hear what was waiting

   in the dark