The engine is a dull roar outside my metal pod.
Ahead of me car lights reflect on black pavement
like water.  
On a winding snake swallowed by a great black chasm.

Stationary stars guide the way to an unseen, unknown
destination.  Great mechanical
beasts sit along the roadside.

Yellow dashes,
white lines speeding by remind me of
Hansel and Gretel.
Angry red eyes rise and fall before me.
Into view and then out again.

The warm yet dim lights of houses
blink by like eyes in glaring sun.
I wish one were mine.

Great skeletal trees, solitary
monoliths alongside the doomed snake,
are silent and witnesses of our trek.

And finally we break free of the spell
of monotony.
The city comes alive with shrill voices and the
warning of red lights.
Some don't stop.

I wish I had.  And turned around before I realized that
the magic of the blackness of
night and the snake and the stars
are only found beyond the islands of light where the
people dwell.

But now I am back, the tall unfeeling windows of my
apartment are not welcoming.  Are not warm.
I think they are frowning down upon me, but they
are only windows.