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blank Sep 22
i get lost on purpose
    drive into the mountains like
    maybe i’m waiting for a cliff

   like maybe route 44 will go off the grid
    unmap itself
from my neurons and from google both

i brake disgusted
    reminded of the guy who took the hairpin too fast
    and didn’t even make a dent in the ridge
reminded how it looms so large with every rev
    till all i see is rock
   , road
   , and impossibly the flightiest glimpse of

   vanishing point

so distant from the guy who escaped the sky

i pull over next to smoking trucks and their smoking drivers
silhouetted against a valley so vast it may as well be nothing
    a pipedream projected somewhere
    beyond
     some etching from the silurian period
    that i won’t understand (not even when i’m older)

i’m sorry i’m late

i get lost on purpose
    but i still repeat myself:
the second the county signs change color
    i’m shivering at the lookout
    i'm swinging around and glancing nervously at the sun
i'm slamming my brakes at the hairpin
    neither earth nor air nor new
   just home.

sorry i’m late
but i’m here.
    i parked at the end of the driveway
   like always.
--written 2/22/23--
Erwinism Sep 22
no matter how you rove,
you can't trust roads
to lead you home in the
winter.

on occasions, she brews
a tempest laced with
coffee to wreak havoc
in the morning,
and at night,
in between restlessness
and nightmares,
her back holds up a sign
that reads "no yesterdays
allowed"

gone was our youth,
tarnished like trinkets
coated with gold
peddled and sold
like empty promises

sometimes,
white flags are waved,
and we find us wrapped
inside arms that used
to be used to be our home
but the years took
its toll and had us evicted
out of boredom

deep in her eyes,
I see that she is there
at the moment as a misdirection,
fleeting like a daydream fading
into the background
but in the corner
of her disquieting eyes
there is a pulsating
dark light yearning
for emancipation.
There is something
behind their walls
that I dare not behold,
lest, my heart turns into stone,
a monument of brokenness
deeply rooted where it stands
waiting for time to weather
it into dust for the wind to
scatter

it's utterly tiring
to spit words
that leave wounds
for us to dress with
never-again bandages
for in time,
in the most inopportune
circumstances our deathless
animosity just
seeps through

yet,

as voracious as we are
to be alone, we atone
for still we loved

we can't always
trust the roads to lead
us home in winter,
but if take the good
with the bad
maybe one day
we can look back
at our madness
bold enough to say
though our hearts betrayed
still we loved.
Francie Lynch Jul 24
So many roads lead back home,
But not the one where I was born.
That first wet road was slippery,
With curves and hills and holes,
But every mile I travelled on,
Without knowing, I headed home.

Those many highways,
Like a wheel,
Were radiating spokes,
But like the wheel,
They're circular,
So always lead back home.
Mark Wanless Jul 2023
walking the dog down familiar
   blurry roads

what do i see but i want
   there to be

created a spaceship that flew
   me to mars

followed good soldier into
   evil war

stopped all the killing
   hatred no more
Chris Saitta Apr 2023
Love is a thousand women who fail to amount to one,
Peasant seductress with bared shoulders of red dun-colored roads and candle smoke,
Who pours down her wet, ungoverned hair, like a fast-fading storm to dry over Aurelian walls,
In that dark sneer of sultriness over the sentry-like stillness of ramparts and stone,
A wasp in water whose sibilance comes from what the sting makes,
Like the upgathered phalanx of spears in the sand,
Or the sisters of fate who have coiled their hair as sunset snakes,
Her fingertips ***** into me like much-traveled and ancient rain.
mark john junor Jul 2022
The further away we may wander,
the closer to the heart our olden days become
the people who welcomed us
the places we danced
the music that still lingers in the air
with the love of a dream still shared...

The further away we may wander
we love each new adventure
never knowing where the road may lead
but we will always fondly look back
to the many homes our hearts have known
and wish upon wish to share our adventures
and roads with the people who celebrate our joy...

The further away we may wander,
we come to realize
places are meant to be left behind
but the smiles and loves we found there
will forever be part of who we are
GaryFairy Jun 2022
I came along to a road block on route 33
there was no traffic so I just rode my electric bike on the shoulder
I saw a lot of debris and blood on the road
the cops weren't paying attention, so I went closer
It appeared to be what was left of a man
or a bunch of ground meat with what appeared to be a whole eyeball

with an actual eyebrow

and a shoe

to me, it looked like a left eye

police came running at me and had their hands in their weapons yelling at me to get back

I panicked a little and about rode right through the meaty matter

I made it just a few meters away before I heard them closing in

I got on the ground
the one with a voice yelled at me
he said something about human remains

I started laughing so diabolically that the voice stopped
I'm thinking to myself...

"and I can't go around?"

I laughed continuously and uncontrollably for a good 10 minutes

I must have totally lost my mind this time

I hope so...

I hope so

when I got home later that day, someone told me that they found Kenny dead today

in the middle of route 33

I started snickering...

I broke out into a cackle

I laughed so hard, for so long, that it became very painful

I couldn't stop

my best friend had went through something dreadful

I still say that it didn't look like his eyeball and left eyebrow

then again
who am I to say what another man's eyeball and left brow would look like

on top of a pile of meat and blood..

and one shoe

Bahahaha
ouch
oh the agony!

this is serious

this is not sweet insanity
RIP Kenneth
topacio Sep 2021
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost

And so i waded at the fork
in the woods and recalled
these oft-repeated words,

i aimed my shoes to the left
for this was the road
that was undoubtedly
less traveled

but i hesitated and my thoughts
turned to "conformity" -
the merry subject
at poem's hand.

for although the thick
brush was denser
on this part of land,
i could at least understand

conforming for uncomformities
sake was in itself ..
a conformism,
and the real
unconformity was uniforming
yourself to you.
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