The rental car place is across La Reforma
A grand boulevard that slices across D. F. like a river
Driving away a few minutes later
There’s barely enough time to think
Oh my god, what the fuck have I gotten myself into
But before you can think this time
Up looms the traffic circle at the Angel
It’s like when you were a kid
And it was your turn on the rope swing
Or diving off the cliff or the bridge that proved your courage
So it’s a use the force moment
Surrendering to instinct
Calculating millimeters of space on all fronts at full speed
Hyperdriving into streets a dozen lanes across
In each direction
With road hazards like cobbled patches
To test your dental work
All manner of transportation
Buses, taxis and cars mixed up with carts and critters
Bicycles piled high with baskets
At stoplights the car is swarmed by grimy squeegee kids
People selling all manner of stuff
Including baby owls once
Or fire breathers exploding into wonderment
Then working the windows which roll down
Delivering crimped beneficence
Then a LeMans start with twenty cars racing
For a spot where only six will fit
Holding velocity into the maelstrom
Where magically we all redistribute at the last second
Like a flock of starlings
It isn’t that you ever relax
Driving in this city
But there are moments when it’s about as much fun as it gets
Flowing with a steel tumolt
And while I don’t want to align myself with Cortez
For a moment I conquered something on those streets
Piloting a rental car through mad chaos
Because I was able to understand the madness
Without needing to translate it
At speed
David Trudel © 2013
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Rental
The rental car place is across La Reforma
A grand boulevard that slices across D. F. like a river
Driving away a few minutes later
There’s barely enough time to think
Oh my god, what the fuck have I gotten myself into
But before you can think this time
Up looms the traffic circle at the Angel
It’s like when you were a kid
And it was your turn on the rope swing
Or diving off the cliff or the bridge that proved your courage
So it’s a use the force moment
Surrendering to instinct
Calculating millimeters of space on all fronts at full speed
Hyperdriving into streets a dozen lanes across
In each direction
With road hazards like cobbled patches
To test your dental work
All manner of transportation
Buses, taxis and cars mixed up with carts and critters
Bicycles piled high with baskets
At stoplights the car is swarmed by grimy squeegee kids
People selling all manner of stuff
Including baby owls once
Or fire breathers exploding into wonderment
Then working the windows which roll down
Delivering crimped beneficence
Then a LeMans start with twenty cars racing
For a spot where only six will fit
Holding velocity into the maelstrom
Where magically we all redistribute at the last second
Like a flock of starlings
It isn’t that you ever relax
Driving in this city
But there are moments when it’s about as much fun as it gets
Flowing with a steel tumolt
And while I don’t want to align myself with Cortez
For a moment I conquered something on those streets
Piloting a rental car through mad chaos
Because I was able to understand the madness
Without needing to translate it
At speed
David Trudel © 2013
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Tagged as Avenida de la Reforma, big city traffic, blank verse, creative writing, creativity, district federale, free verse, mexico city, poetry, rental cars, social commentary, traffic, Zona Rosa