WHIRL ON SILVER WHEELS

High speed drift on a prairie road
Hot tires sing like a string being bowed
Sudden town rears up then explodes
Fragments resolve into white line code
Whirl on silver wheels

Black earth energy receptor fields
Undulate under a grey cloud shield
We outrun a river colour brick red mud
That cleaves apart hills soil rich as blood
Whirl on silver wheels

Highway squeeze in construction steam
Stop caution hard hat yellow insect machines
Silver steel towers stalk rolling land
Toward distant stacks that shout "Feed on demand"
Whirl on silver wheels

100 miles later the sky has changed
Urban anticipation -- we get 4 lanes
Red orange furnace sphere notches down
Throws up silhouette skyline in brown
Whirl on silver wheels

Sundogs flare on windshield glass
Sudden swoop skyward iron horse overpass
Pass a man walking like the man in the moon
Walking like his head's full of irish fiddle tunes
Whirl on silver wheels

The skin around every city looks the same
Miles of flat neon spelling well-known names
USED TRUCKS DIRTY DONUTS YOU YOU'RE THE ONE
Fat wheeled cars squeal into the sun
Whirl on silver wheels

Radio speakers gargle top 40 trash
Muzak soundtrack to slow collapse
Planet engines pulsate in sidereal time
If you listen close you can hear the whine
Whirl on silver wheels



Bruce Cockburn “Silver Wheels”