«trembling like a truck…» — Summary

trembling like a truck through tiny lapses, delirium tremens. logic describes lazy circles in the sky. adios mes amigos. fucking amid the maps, views of rivers, and so forth.

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Nothing in this poem holds still for long. It opens with a shudder, something "trembling like a truck" through "tiny lapses," and then names delirium tremens, the shakes of severe alcohol withdrawal. Whether the speaker is literally suffering that or just borrowing its feeling, the effect is a mind and body that can't quite steady themselves.

From there the poem drifts. Logic, usually the thing we use to keep ideas in order, "describes lazy circles in the sky," like a bird with nowhere to go. Then comes a casual "adios mes amigos," a goodbye mixing Spanish and French, as if language itself is slipping between gears. The blunt line about sex among maps and river views, followed by the shrugging "and so forth," makes the whole thing feel unfinished and offhand.

The mood is jittery but oddly relaxed: a loose, bleary, half-comic collapse of sense. The poem seems less interested in telling a story than in letting you feel what it's like when thought breaks into pieces.

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