Elegy By PW Covington

He seemed to know his way around by soul

In any town that we can to

While remaining the consummate stranger

Brown-eyed

Passing through

Burning ambition for warmth in the night

Listening for love and only ever hearing echoes

The prophet of highway happenstance and truck stops

     and smoky neon light-filled rooms night

So deep in Mason Dixon

It almost made him want to cry

He told me once, while high

Sipping beer from a bag that night in Pensacola

How to hitchhike into Houston, out of San Antone

Or find a flop in Tucson to lay low

Those desperate places, next to nail salons

Where flesh is bought and sold

He seemed to know every County Road

Or Metro line, by heart

Airports were his haunts

Worked, a while, as a deckhand

In the deep blue cobalt Gulf

Of Mexico, he’d often talk about

Months with the Tarahumara 

     and the railroad to Los Mochis

He knew the alleyways of Santa Fe

     and his way around Capitol Hill

Where to find the cheapest lid on Colfax

     and the way from Mount St. Helens

Up to Deception Pass

Always feeling himself fueled mostly by momentum

He seemed to know his way around by soul

Brown-eyed, passing through

PW Covington is the NBPF's 2024-2026 New Mexico Beat Poet Laureate.

 Writing in the Beat tradition of the North American Highway, PW Covington has spent decades traveling in support of his writing, and encouraging the creativity of others.

 Covington's latest collection of poetry Vintage Denim is available from Alien Buddha Press.

  PW lives just south of Historic Route 66 in Albuquerque, NM, where he has worked on film and television productions such as Better Call Saul and The Cleaning Lady.