after a million miles on the bus

after the all the bumps and curves and shaking

groaning down the moonlit highway with a trailer full of gear

the music ringing on in my ears forever

i can hear virtually nothing but the ringing

day and sizzling night

my poor shot out ears

i guess its all worth it one day

i guess when i’m home again doing the washing up

i guess when my suitcase expires and all the socks escape

the tour winds around the usa

the deserts the giant redwoods the uninhabited spaces behind my eyes

the whirlwind plunges and lunges forwards

we pull up in some deserted coastal town

where the fuck was that oregon or california

a mexican restaurant and that was it

trudging through nevada 105 degree heat

boutique towns that look like movie sets

the quarries and the cornfields of the flat lands

alluvial plains and bridges and ditches and telegraph poles

the audiences cheer and clap they file in and out of the theatres and gigs

the guitars go back in the cases

the bass waits silently in the darkness

the lights are yet dimmed

the stage lays in black unrealised

the notes and words  all potential

we hit seattle and denver and somewhere else, didn’t we..?

we grab our meals

we slosh down our drinks

we light up a smoke outside in the quiet

we lose ourselves in some song

dislocated by the road

i march into your life and back out again

my voice is uncertain and frail in the small hours

and the distance is always beckoning on somewhere else

i lose contact with the world

i live within this strange waking dream

miles and miles and miles later

ordering a coffee

they ask me for a name

and i look around for what seems like hours

waiting for my name to appear on my lips

waiting for the tour to slow its way to an end

i don’t know anymore