In the Underground Garage: Poems Incognito

By Geoff Peterson

A man drives a car from one tattered corner of the nation to another in the year of COVID. Passing from winter flurries to the wide angled West, over landscapes both shuttered and moribund, driving becomes a trance where the odometer flips over and time is the length of a song on radio. In In the Underground Garage, the poet describes not geographical states so much as the state of being in transit, where solitude slips into silence and you learn that the road is driving you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665527996

Geoff Peterson

Born just after World War II, Peterson inherited his mother's nervous system and went on to memorize and perform poetry in a lyric vein for family and card parties. Raised Catholic, the boy learned the value of dreams, visions, and the soothing aspects of prayer in unison. He later earned degrees in Literature and Writing at Eastern Washington University, and served as poetry editor for Willow Springs Magazine. With the publication of his first novel in 1989, Peterson turned his back on mainstream publishing and has not looked back. Since 2007 he has published nearly thirty books of poetry and fiction. He lives in the Southwest and still gets around.

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© 2021 geoff peterson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/17/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2800-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2799-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021911337

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Front cover photo by Geoff Peterson

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Into The Loop

White-Out

My Last Mission

Heading Out

Winter, 2020

Looking Forward

Long Story Short

Detour

End Times

Her Again

Driving by Instruments

Elijah in Terre Haute

Midnight

In The Underground Garage

Mother Road

God of the Plains

Apparition

Making Another Year

Minus One Piece

A Brief Busy Life

Herd Immunity

At the Chicken Shack

²nd Thoughts at Denny’s

Greyhound

Church of No Hope

First Light

At the Spa

Horoscope

Drive All Night

The Inland Sea

Jornada del Muerto

Rabbits

Ironwood Trail

At Dawn the Heat Starts

Signs of the Times:

Signs: Day 2

Day 3

The Lost Horizon (1934)

Between the Lines

Selected Poems

Naked City

Last Words

Grim Sweeping

Sisters of Mary

Passing the Exits

Landscape

Geometry

Autopsy

II.

III.

7 Things I Listen For

Motel

The Flesh

Getting Any

Come to Think of It...

Echo Chamber

Snapshot #1

Snapshot #2

Westbound

Blizzard

Stop for the Night

Thermostat

Ghost Walk

Homestead

On Geronimo’s Trail

Backward Seeking

Last Exit

The Woman at the Diner

Staying Over

Getting Warm

Storm Warning

I don’t put anything on paper.

Social Distance

The Test

Las Cruces

Great Western

Between the Acts

Check-up

Lost Between Binges

Final Remarks

Stowaway

Quotes

House Full of Moon

Life Reading

Ours

Vacancy

TV