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      November 29, 2018Locked Brakes on BlacktopGuinotte Wise

      Image: “Hanging Collage” by Courtney Carroll. “Locked Brakes on Blacktop” was written by Guinotte Wise for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, October 2018, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
      When he drives the grain truck in, what
      the hell, parachutists in the trees! Cannot
      believe this shit he says, farming is not
      a spectator sport, used to be from seed to
      silo not much else but baloney sandwich
      damn hydraulics give out sometimes but
      not much else to pull attention, now black
      smoke blowing airhorns too brakes are
      locked and tires striping Florida blacktop
      jumpers out there silks aflutter standing
      right there in the deathwish lane I will
      do them in by hand if I jack-knife this old
      Peterbilt and live to get my hands on them.
      Sur-fucking-real he says, spits Red Man
      into a coffee can misses the sonofabitch.

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the editor, Timothy Green

      “There’s something delightful in the contrast between the no-nonsense trucker and the surreal scene he’s witnessing, and something mesmerizing about the half-monologue’s voice. As often happens, it was the poem that I enjoyed more every time I returned to it. And the ending, where he spits out his tobacco but misses, is perfect.”

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