Distortion . . . (re-visited)

This post is being re-cycled back into the present, simply because I stumbled on it this evening while looking for something else in the back pages of the swamplands here, and thought it looked lonely, like it wanted a new lease on life. The tomb referred to in this piece as being just a few posts down is actually back in November of 2008, and can be seen here... if you're curious. The message on the tomb in question is one of the most incredible I've ever seen anywhere...
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And also, I'd like to dedicate this one to Tom at TomB. Photography, because he is doing simply outstanding work, and so far it looks like not alot of folks have discovered his blog, unless they are all lurkers not leaving any words in his comment box . . . anyway, see for yourself. . .
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I wrote the below piece nearly exactly 20 years ago, while living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but getting ready to depart to other horizons. Sometimes when you know you are going to be leaving a place, probably forever, it takes on a strange light. I had to wait 20 years to get the photo that goes with this poem here... a near perfect fit, taken just yesterday afternoon, before stumbling on the cemetery where the below described tomb was found. When the time draws nigh to leave this life, I wonder what things are going to start looking like then ? For info, this photo was not re-worked in any way, shape or form, the distortion is naturally occurring, the effect of a truck no doubt having somehow hit the mirror in question. Will have to go back and try this again under some different lighting conditions...
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........Red Light
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I was stopped at the traffic light
Stopped, sitting still
But outside… everything was moving.
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Trees were swaying dangerously
Parked cars were swerving
Toward the curbs
Yellow stripes on the road
Slithered into the distance
Power lines overhead
Spun a dizzying jump-rope dance
Brick buildings were bouncing
And leaning into Escher perspectives
Threatening to assume
A permanent Pisa pose
Sidewalk squares swirled
Like the rapids in Pole Creek Canyon
The town began to tilt
Until I stared straight down
At the vanishing point
On the undulating horizon
Patches of the scene became hazy
And disappeared, then reappeared
Magnesium bright ghost lights
Hovered in the gutters
Only my radial tires’ steel grip
Kept me glued there
Until the traffic light
Turned green.
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As I drove home
I recognized that
The distortion was internal
This town is slipping into the surreal
Because I know that I am leaving.
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