Driving Endlessly
  or
Nightwatchman
  by Cliff Roberts

Streetlights stream repetitiously past
as the hypnotic dotted line measures 
the darkened horizon before me.

Nightly I listen to you 
and my mortal friends have noticed.

They question my devotion
to your monologues of grim reality

never realizing the 
sensual thrill that echoes into my ear and 
trembles throughout my body
as your words crawl inside.

Gripping the steering wheel 
I feel the wind in my hair 
                                         like you ...

the caress of the seat
around and beneath me 
                                  and I imagine ...

Your sensual voice reverberates 
within the chambers of my slow beating heart,
     into the very center of my soullessness,
taking me back down old nightmare paths,
near forgotten dreams
and forbidden fantasies
never spoken.

I lie even to myself,
never again daring to succumb to a moment's temptation,
never giving into the  other   hunger
that drives me into the night,

a pleasure which eclipses,
quenches and at the same time encourages
my thirst,

and I abstain from the hunger and the thirst
lest my guilt and desires overcome me
and I lose myself in you and your netherworld once again.

But I listen,
     I listen passionately and drive
towards and yet away from you
                                             forever in the night.

March '00