A Beat Poet Jams to Loverboy

We sped along the blacktop ribbon

driving I-70 at midnight,

air-conditioning broken,

windows down,

screaming the lyrics to songs

we swore they hated.

And the soundtrack to this

Odyssey to nowhere and everywhere

Poured through the speakers like so much

Guitar-driven wine.

Loverboy

The great Canadian transmission

beamed through the static

of Daryl's failing cassette deck.

The one he installed while drunk on PBR

And calling himself a goddamned genuis.

The red leather pants of destiny.

The headband of revelation.

The eternal cry of a man

Who desperately needed it to be Friday.

Even though it was Tuesday.

I came to Loverboy accidentally.

I was searching for Coltrane.

Searching for Kerouac.

Searching for transcendence.

Instead, the algorithm handed me

a sandy-haired man in fingerless gloves

asking everyone in a three-state radius

To turn him loose.

What I found was what every soul finds

Everybody's working for the weekend

Everybody's going off the deep end

Everybody needs a second chance.

And suddenly I believed him.

Because who among us

has not stared into the fluorescent abyss

of a Wednesday afternoon staff meeting

and whispered,

"Mike Reno understands my suffering."

The Beat poets sought liberation

on highways and freight trains.

Loverboy sought liberation

through arena rock keyboards

that sounded like a laser printer

discovering emotions.

Discovering hot girls in love.

And behold the freedom that

Came with that spiritual awakening

Freedom in the sense of

quitting your sales job

and purchasing a jet ski.

Freedom in the sense of

wearing a sleeveless shirt

without consulting anyone

before leaving the house.

Freedom in the sense of

walking into a room and declaring:

"I have purchased tickets

for a monster truck rally."

And then not explaining further.

Daryl's van rambled along America's byways

Between its mountains and lakes

Its 7-11s with their Big Gulps and filterless Camels

We bellowed "Turn Me Loose" like wild animals

Our road trip promised lucidity

A look into ourselves and destinies

But when those synth chords blared

and the guitars roared with urgency

We know Loverboy would take us

On a different journey

And we were lovin' every minute of it.