NaPoWriMo Day 18: Scotch mist

 
Day 18 of the NaPoWriMo challenge at www.napowrimo.net.
 
Prompt: Like our villanelle prompt from a week ago, this prompt plays around with song lyrics, but in a very specific context – singing while riding in a car. Take a look at Ellen Bass’s poem, “You’re the Top.” Now, craft your own poem that recounts an experience of driving/riding and singing, incorporating a song lyric.

Lyric from Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car – ‘I wanted a ticket to anywhere’.

 
Scotch mist
 
I wanted a ticket to anywhere
& anywhere was where you wanted to go.
You had a plan to strike out hard,
drive from the Dover cliffs to Germany
& back, but the autobahn got flooded,
the centre of Europe a bowl of water.
They say it’s all in the timing,
so we were already out of time.
But I wanted a ticket to anywhere
& you asked me to go for a ride.
 
You’d never been to the Scottish Isles,
land of kilts, Nessie & whiskey clouds,
drew a red ring around it on a map,
tricked me that we were staying in B&Bs
only for me to find a tent on the backseat.
Map reading became my thing,
an art I never thought was my forte,
& we never got lost. Not once.
I wanted a ticket to anywhere
& I guess you just needed a guide.
 
I’d only known you a few weeks,
but you had a face I could trust.
You drove like a rally driver,
as crazy energetic as your shagging,
played the same CD for an entire week.
I’ve never been able to play it since
cos life on repeat seldom rings true.
It doesn’t survive the humdrum.
But I wanted a ticket to anywhere
& you gave me a ticket to ride.
 
I was Laurence of Arabia bereft of desert,
snug in our tent, kind of romantic.
We had mountains that soared purple & blue,
kept awake by a million bleating sheep.
I never knew they had so many different voices.
You bullied me to the top of Ben Nevis,
unable to walk behind me for long,
freaked out by my “jelly-leg” walk.
I wanted a ticket to anywhere,
didn’t know it would be 1345 miles up.
 
We took the safe route up. I insisted,
while grown men arse-slid down the silt.
You’d rather launch yourself off the edge
into the invisible endless nothing,
but I reined in your adventurous streak.
At the top I was rewarded with mist,
nothing to see in any direction.
A stranger gave us Cadbury chocolate.
I wanted a ticket to anywhere,
but I was far too tame for you.
 
It wasn’t our journey that mattered in the end,
the verdant forests, bubbling waterfalls,
steep chasms, striking heights & traffic jams,
but the people it brought who stayed far longer.
They lasted, while our fire blew out fast.
So that was the reason I met you,
besides earning my camping badge.
We were out of time from start to finish,
but I wanted a ticket to anywhere
& it brought me something money can’t buy.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 23, 2025