Up from the Page: A Prose-Poem, Cab Ride Rant by Julio M. Valentin

Photo by Taxi Library

The piece below is the experience of writer's block itself in a prose-styled, poetic essay. Experiencing the poetry in the present world is aided by dialogue--a realization a Liberty Cab driver gave me while running late for school one day. When experiencing writer's block, I found that being aware of the poetry around you is better than trying to invoke or create it. My advice for anyone in a similar boat is that when your poetic thoughts aren't coming out, simply look up from the page and inhale the poetry you live until it flows from your fingers and back on to the page. 

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Often, I wonder about what I can do to get over closed bridges to poetic thought. Writer’s block is a closure. Before physically transporting to a new (possibly different) place, I want to attempt to capture the sublime and overcome such an obstacle. Typically, immediately after experiencing the awe or horror of a scene, poetry would flow through me river-like--a fluidity, as water under a bridge of elevated emotion and thought. However, the stream of current events has been very distracting, forming boulders and boulders of writer's’ block. What does one--who was once inspired by the immediacy of the moment--do when current events are the very things causing blockage? 

"The irony of the moment...the poem itself"

Recently, I encountered a taxi cab driver who helped me find the answer to that question after missing the shuttle bus to school. What he did through normal dialogue is trigger what I haven’t noticed: When something is in the way, you just have to climb it; go around it, because that’s what rivers do. With an exchange of words, he made me realize the irony of the moment, often the poem itself. It is then I realized that it is not one's momentum, but one's view that moves the pen. Thanks to that exchange, I wrote a stream of consciousness poem called “If You Miss Your Shuttle, Call a Taxi Cab.”

"Dialogue is trigger"

If You Miss Your Shuttle, Call a Taxi Cab

On a Liberty Cab ride to school, from the stereo speaker, NPR announced that a nearby galaxy — just 39 light years away (seemingly, about the distance between humans and compassion these days) — could have seven Earths. Seven whole freaking Earths. That’s about one Earth for every five U.S. megacorporations on the governmental gravy boat for tax breaks. With all the money they’re saving from most likely paying their employees less than a living wage, all of their top execs can begin a moon colony. Maybe when it all goes down, we can grease up our hands and rebuild again, and again, and again, until our new world discards all of the inequities we’ve inherited. My first vote would be to get rid of government cheese.

How long would it be before the plunder? Of new lands like Heaven, Valhalla, Elysium, Mictlan; any place un-mangled under the Misconstrued? Because dollars signs are easier to read than protest signs for environmental protection. They already got Narnia. Yes, the CGI is amazing and the land there is abundant with resources, but none of that should be for sale. It’s trademarked, already controlled by 4 white kids; where the girls are constantly undermined by the boys with their anger issues, trying to be heroes in all the movies. Just like Hollywood likes it.

The Liberty Cab driver chuckles after the new Earth announcement and says, “Finally, we can leave, since this world has gone to shit in less than 100 days!” I knew what he was getting at, so I didn’t respond because it’s all so scary for people like him and I, now more than ever. Sometimes the silence keeps it away, like I.C.E. — like space. The two of us laugh once more and play it off as an awkward taxicab confessional. But then, I saw opportunity shining bright in the driver’s eyes, in the reflection of the rear-view mirror; opportunity, like a new start for his family, bright eyes filled as if with a new generation to rebuild. A new nation, a new society, and new rules that could fit new times on a new Earth with new air and new water after a new journey. He came here looking for a new life, a promised one, the American Dream. He came here with his family but quickly realized the only “new” here that counted was one that could be discounted like fast food, music, and products lining the aisles of Walmart. I looked again at his glistening, hopeful eyes, the willingness to forget it all, to pack up, to migrate, to survive.  I looked up at him, and I almost heard him say, as Kanye would, "nothing ever promised tomorrow today." 

At my destination, I pulled out a 20 (plus tip) and thanked the man for the ride and poem. He said, “I am grateful, sir. I hope we meet again in the stars. If not, call me and I’ll take you there.”