"backroad" poems
i like informality
beer straight outta the bottle
pizza for breakfast
wearing a shirt 3 times
before washing it
doing dishes by hand
reading old birthday cards
stayin up til 2
even though i have to be up at 8
bonfires
backroads
gettin lost on the way to a bonfire
because i took a backroad
going to a bar
on a tuesday night
and kissin a stranger
because i'm drunk
and lonely
and through the years i've aquired a taste
for whiskey on lips.
and.. wasn't that always the point?
Feb 16, 2018
Feb 16, 2018 at 12:34 AM UTC
A mother whispers into the fire of Night
I hold a match
I hold Yarn
I Am Wool
Shrinking to the formation
The intricate designs of your rib cage
of your brother's belly
of your Grandfather's waist
Am I simply a fool?
And Who
Doth I ask This question too?
A Torn book
A tattered sonnet of Man's sore feet
blistered eyes that are Green
That are Brown
That are Blue
I Lay with myself Tonight
I am Awake
I am Loud
In your Night
I Am the Janitor beneath the hardwood floors
of your Dream
I am the
Poorly Waged Electrician
With Shoes that resemble an old dog
I Light Your Highway
Your Street
Your Morning coffee
your
cigarette
Am I The Child?
I fall in love with women I see on the streets
Their Wavy hair
like a French sea
Her pale complexion
the Brown Glimmer in her eyes
And I paint on her on Tombstones
On Coffee Mugs and on carpets rolled up for the Dumpster
At Nights
I prefer to dream awake
and sit with a BathTub of words
of stories that melt like cheese
that stiffen like Ginsberg ****
that Shriek and Strum like Tom Waits stomach when he starves on backroad streets
And when I cannot
reproduce
I make love to a woman
And a poem is made
and I kiss her
and my lips say 5 am
and I wish her not to go
But the Dog
is waken by Robins
by the Pigeons
by the digestion of night to day
by the Greek Gods and Goddess' Light
That Falls down
like long hair of woman you have so longed for
and you kiss her chest
And there is no Death
There is no Sleep
or ****** addicts or gasoline or paved roads or shaved faces or mothers or Dostoevsky or Beethoven
There is just her
and you run your fingers across her skin
through her hair
She is the bottom of the Ocean
You are a homeless crab
a Shellless Clam
falling down
down
down
to the bed of the great ocean
and there she lays
With a reflection of Youth and Beauty
And her complex simplicity makes me think of
me as a boy
running behind brick collapsed business buildings
Kissing a girl behind church
Buying Icecream with Josh in Winter
That's what a woman does
She erases Death
from the palms of your hands
and your thoughts
and you sink
to the bottom
and you watch the Coral
The other fish
swimming along
and you laugh
Because you do not know Death
And Death does not know you.
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 3:16 AM UTC
I woke up one day,
filled with fierce eyes.
Checked the time
&
didn't want
to get out-of-
bed.
Another hour
Another day,
Time flashes by
through hearts
dismay.
Planted
my feet on
the hard wood crevices
feeling my cold morning flesh
touch the floor
feeling
alive.
Glanced into the mirror
and here i' am again
a female beast
in disguise.
Tryin
to do my best
live day by day
to be treated like
an angry animal
through the
day
Breathing
&
living tired of the pain
I want to get away
somewhere far
far...far
away.
Sip
my cold drink
sometimes i may
not want to eat
so I slip my shoes on
and take a deeper breath
in then walk my way
out the front
door.
Seems
to me, the morning
is pretty quiet, with a fresh
dew and sunrise groom.
When I look around
there's no one in site
until the day goes by
and their back in
life.
Take
me away
from this ugly place
this is not my home
but a temporary warmth
filled with childhood memories
within good and bad
filling me in like
a hawk searching
for roadkill
in the distance
of a backroad
smothered in
a raw
delight.
Jul 21, 2021
Jul 21, 2021 at 1:22 AM UTC
Hunting dove down on the backroad
way on back only the rancher knows
he doesn’t care so we wait for flight
12 gauges ready to start our plight
Ring necks, white wings, and mourning’s are game
chichi birds make us swing all the same
listening for the whistle and the beat of the wing
one of us today, will win the brass ring
Limiting out is what we’re hoping for
but if not, you couldn’t hope for more
outside with friends and family alike
kids getting bored, gone on a hike
Men at the truck with cold Coors Light
relaxing outdoors, no one’s uptight
suns getting low, they are about to fly
here they come, hear the wings sigh
Draw a bead and a lead and fire away
one bird down, hope there’s more we pray
birds on the tailgate at the end of fight
get em’ all clean before the black of the night.
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 2:17 PM UTC
i've been waking up to desaturation all my life.
i don't know why but i've been
rolling over in the same grey-skinned body,
opening shoddy eyes, heart heavy
as a hangover. i climb into your chevy with
it in my hands. i know this is the fifth time i've lit
a cigarette since i quit, but my lungs needed the ash.
did you know, in a car crash, just one person
not wearing a seatbelt would worsen the casualties?
so if you see the casual ease with which i bare my chest,
know that the carnage of my reckless form,
hail in a storm of steel and violence, at least felt sorry.
the starry dark of a backroad, an explosion of light,
a bright metal supernova and colors even my eyes can't doubt;
we'll all find out exactly how heavy my guilt
is when the body sorrow built ascends through the windshield.
May 27, 2021
May 27, 2021 at 1:34 AM UTC
maybe you were right: i never brought
home flowers or chocolate
cleverly arranged in the
shape of a heart and
i couldn't afford a day at the spa
but i'd always sit with my bare ***
on the cold bathroom tile for hours and
feed you toasted bits of cheese on ritz crackers
while you cried in the bathtub i'd
braid your hair as you
let your fingers wrinkle until
the water cooled off too much your
******* got hard and bubbles
stuck to the cut of your shoulders
because you were there when
my mom's little car died on a backroad
under the old black tree
that scratched up the sky
you pulled your pants up
over ruby knees and asked
me to fix your bra
smoked a cigarette lying upside down
across my damp chest
facing my feet and
made me make a promise
while i traced music notes into
the soft flesh of your back with
my ***** fingernails and found
the cracks in your porcelain ankles
with my tongue
you said my love for you is
something that will never make sense
and you never know what to do
with your hands when i'm kissing you
but you moaned the chorus while
i sang verses into your bellybutton
and tied a couple fingers to the
soft web of hair behind your ears
we were like two locusts
fighting in a gossamer heap
two weeks later you were dancing
in my kitchen like a daffodil drunk
on robotussin wearing only striped
peppermint legwarmers and
authentic dreamcatcher earrings
so i bought a theremin from
your favorite pawn shop
and taught you how to tickle it
and as the wind picked up
whipped your hair into a
crucial comet's tail and rustled
the caterpillar from the windowpane
back to it's home in the wormy grass
i could hear the warm whistle
it made when you played with it
alone in the bedroom
i am crying now while
driving down highway one
recalling how your nose crinkled
when you smoked crushed roaches
or the way your hair tasted in the morning
and how you used to spit a
little bit when you laughed
and i can still hear that haunted echo
even as the saltwater swells
and splashes past the rocks
that sun machine is just
a distant memory now
but it left burn marks on my skin
and the floor where we tumbled
and fought the first time
i called you beautiful
Feb 7, 2016
Feb 7, 2016 at 3:06 PM UTC
Apple pie and hunting ducks
rusty, worn out pick up trucks
tales of being out of luck
The story's in the song
Broken hearts and drinking beer
Friday nights, the weekend's here
Strong enough to shed a tear
The story's in the song
The story's in the song my friends
The story's in the song
If you can not hear the tale
I've told the story wrong
The story's in the song my friends
The story's in the song
Listen close and you will find
The story's in the song
Driving on a red dirt road
Carrying a heavy load
Living to a cowboy's code
The story's in the song
Backroad driving in the dark
Pick up games down at the park
Memories that leave a mark
The story's in the song
The story's in the song my friends
The story's in the song
If you can not hear the tale
I've told the story wrong
The story's in the song my friends
The story's in the song
Listen close and you will find
The story's in the song
Mar 27, 2022
Mar 27, 2022 at 2:35 PM UTC
Some in my family say
Uncle Sam was my salvation
when I was a young man
hell, maybe so, I don’t know
but he kept me out of jail
and paid for my education
which is how I found myself
in West Memphis, Arkansas
surveying Indian mounds
that some fool professors thought
were put there by the Choctaw
but I knew they’d got it wrong
all along, it was the Mississippians
which makes perfect sense if you think
on it considering where they put ‘em
but I digress, I must confess it
was my fondness for backroad bars
and blues guitars carved from wood
of crosses burnt by drunks in hoods
and strings plucked by calloused fingers
of old men with shoulders slumped
like sagging barns and Ford pickups
you find out in them parts, singing
songs about long gone women, all
kinds of aching age old pains lingering
enough to make a man’s heart rain
until the US Army Corps of Engineers
blew the levy’s to send those tears
out across cotton fields and mounds
I know the Choctaw didn’t build.
Feb 28, 2019
Feb 28, 2019 at 10:58 PM UTC
Gravel, dirt or old blacktops
cruising around, not many stops
through a pasture or tunnel of trees
backroad therapy sets your soul free
Driving around, might even get stuck
No high dollar cooler in back of my truck
Just an old igloo, full of beer on ice
Drink them to fast for that yeti price
Backroads and beer
Nobody else here
No cops around
Jamming country sounds
Just me, my lady, my old red heeler
Flip channels, check score, cowboys and Steelers
Blanket and a picnic behind the seat
Pull over in the shade for an afternoon treat
Might stop at the creek for a skinny dip
Squeeze her tight and kiss her lips
Chasing each other and splashing water
Keeping cool as the evening gets hotter
Backroads and beer
Nobody else here
No cops around
Jamming country sounds
Mountains blue, pop the top
This is so fun may never stop
Out in the country is the place to be
No suit, no tie, completely free
Ol red starts barking, sees a rabbit
Pull over, he jumps out to grab it
The chase is on, we watch and see
Reds tongue is flapping but rabbit ran free
Backroads and beer
Nobody else here
No cops around
Jamming country sounds
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 10:59 PM UTC
its winter
its night in the minds eye
you saw me
you did not speak
you didn't reach out to me
as i passed slowly by
carrying my hearts apocalypse
bleeding from the bitter mote
of that one moment memory
of that point which contact was lost
of that tender touch that remains the last i shall ever have
lean on the steady
but the weight sweeps you off
your newborn feet
the all seeing eye
is really blind
nobody seems to care tho
they all carry on as though knowledge is known
and peace is unattainable
his Buick breaks down on a
far distant backroad
benith a billboard
advertising the end of the road
for all thouse foolish enough to believe
that redemption can be purchased
with a few slick words in the right ear
no confessional tickets
to the great beyond are accepted
in this king james version
there may be a gap
in the knowing
but there's no hole in my heart
there's nothing but love here
for thouse iv shared my road or bed with
for thouse who had a better seeing
of who I am and who I am becoming
in my everyday adventure
i was never really here with you
it was just a vision
of my slowly walking by
carrying the apocalypse of my heart
i was never your intended
never your groom of your forbidden desperation
never meant to be betrothed to your wicked game
i am miles and century's distant
and following the folly or fortune
of my own making
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 6:59 AM UTC
The party was great but afterwards is but a hangover headed south.
A wrong turn a strange bed even I dont get the words slurred from this drunks mouth.
To young and just right.
Today we break the ruloe's and bask in rewards of this awkward fight.
Im a character in a paint drying scene.
I'll tickle more than a fancy if ya know what i mean.
Hey I think she's loose hell so am I.
Tagged the town ***** and me just another demented slightly insane guy.
My hearts a backroad ruff to the ride.
Hey i said Id return hell why does everyone run and hide?
Sure i say forever but how bout tonight.
My love a airport and this plane needs to take flight.
Are you okay you seem a little off my dear?
It's okay its seems i have that effect on everyone here.
T is fr TEXAS and P for Portland ya perves.
He doesnt crash but often swerves.
My love life is like Christmas its overpriced and over to fast.
Course when your paying by the hour guess its okay for the party not to last.
Im cheap as a motel and more messed up than the carpet inside.
I'd make even the devil blush if ***** deeds in him i should ever confide.
My love's like a backroad so they say.
A great place to dump the body but honestly who the **** would ever wanna stay.
May 28, 2012
May 28, 2012 at 2:04 PM UTC
the hard face
sunburned remnants of a man
allways loudspeaker for his intent
announces to the empty room
of his arrival
his field of landmines eyes
wander the crowd in the empty chairs
looking for the face
that will conquer or capitulate
looking for the ever present weak link
most days you can find her
in some park feeding ducks
some real some not so much
dont really make much difference these days
most days you find a smile in her heart
all of em real but not always so quick
most days nothing changes
but sometimes everythings gotta go
and she got no fear putting it on the line
he walked the carpet hall
with the framed pictures of three piece suits
and the victories they had over the outside the line desperado's
sunburnt remnants of a man
he walks with his shadow upright hand in hand
he walks in the darkness of the bright sun
looking for a face in the crowed emptyness
looking for someone that will conquer or capitulate
hes looking for her
but shes looking for you
cause she loves you
and the kitten you carry on your shoulder
most nights shes on the hood of her plymouth
drawing pictures in the dust of the road
sketching echoes out of the nights song
most nights shes driving a backroad with rockabilly
smoking her speakers
most nights you can find her in your arms
but not tonight
not this rainswept night
where we goin
why should this kind of thing happen
why take from someone never done you wrong
why do such things
is it any wonder you never see my face no more
is it any wonder im far away
most of the time
Nov 26, 2013
Nov 26, 2013 at 7:46 PM UTC
on scheduless days of stifling heat
when orderless ranks of canines beat
up the backroad and down the street
into the wood and onto the steep
a glorious arbor among thankless trees
"forever" says the whispering breeze
never mind the never-stop bees
the nimble squirrel is playing freeze
if ever there were a guest-
a sitting stone
but never a guest in this place
my place alone
drenched inside the thicket
a thousand thorny dreams
closing in on me
clamping down on me
altogether surrounding me
as home begins its beckoning
I reason it's a reckoning
I reckon there's a reason
for everything
skyward a fleeting glimpse
of a foregone future forlorn
shatters like a shadow
that a light shines upon
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 8:21 AM UTC
The road to hell is paved with good intentions,
But the only way out is a ****** backroad
That is unpaved save for the jagged remains
Of the souls that didn’t quite make it.
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 6:16 PM UTC
Go the distance
cigarette in one hand
other on the steering wheel
listening to stories about drugs
keep running, do not stop
the world must end somewhere
why not on this backroad
step into a dream
become the fantasy
what is reality
when you live in the mind
I am quite insane
this thought is what hides it
judge me, hate me
I am honest
schizophrenia shines in times like these
who am I tonight
I will be a God hiding in silhouettes
a little girl crying in shame
or that boy screaming into the night
who cares when this is a dream
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 5:45 PM UTC
the fast car evaporates into the inky darkness
like a hazy thought
in the summer night
like a fervent wish to endure
it rides some backroad near the county line
with some stratocaster echoing sweetly
and a crooner of these latter days
sing-talking bout all some love he had stumbled upon
in the backwoods of childhood
and the flame that endures in his soul for her sweet hand
this song fills the air of the empty road
as the fast car
plymouth grey with primer
her wheels spinning on the dust road
the river run by the metro north tracks
the stratocaster hits the end of its song
but some part of you just wants that song
to go on forever
you just want that midnight run to last forever
cause shes there with you
and she has smiles for you alone
your just like that stratocaster looking for
the opening notes of that song
that'll last forever
that'll be on her lips
be her song
Nov 16, 2013
Nov 16, 2013 at 9:51 AM UTC
the new moon really got me restless, i guess.. spinning out the ceiling like some headless daemoness, don’t wanna give my car a rest over that pothole on the backroad and baby, i’m not scared when you throw punches, give it another go. that bubbly went straight to my head, a place you can never find- wind it up now i’m ready to dance again, haven’t got pulled over yet so strap yourself in and grind that skin, you’ll never win.
i’m too good at this, you said it
your
self.
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 5:44 AM UTC
You come down some backroad
And you'll hear some big 'ole diesel trucks
Gravel flying everywhere
The Girl's hairs whipping in the wind
Mud all over the teenagers
A beer in hand
You come down on a ranch
And you'll hear some shotguns
Bullets flying everywhere
The grow men grunting and stalking
Deer antlers for the walls
A beer in hand
You come down on a farm
You'll see Old McDonalds
And you'll hear the animals everywhere
The family out on their trail
Screaming "Yee-Haw"
A beer in hand
You come on down to the lake
You'll see families fishing
You'll hear the bobbers hitting the water
A beer in hand
You come on down to camp
You'll see men living off the land
You'll hear laughter everywhere
A Bon fire going, bringing out the s'mores
Someone with a guitar singing to George Strait
A beer in hand.
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 9:55 AM UTC
the backroad to
Florence, the one along Elm
that cuts past the McDermott
trailer park--
from matt's house past
Cedar and the old liquor store
at 50mph the cicadas sound more
like a cry or a lingering scream
the crickets don't stop for passing trucks
creaking to the metronome of a swishing
cow tail
farmers switch off their brights, come around
corners slow, in striped beat up Chevys, rusty
toolboxes weakly sliding from side to side
like their owners in threadbare leather seats
the young kids trail close, bumper
to bumper on a two-lane road, just me and
some kid named after his grampa, poppy,
Clint, who needs to get home before
mama chews him out--
sunday service still warm from this morning
where a single beetle clung to the wall and translated
my father's sermon, morse code for the elders, for the
elk and deer, he's been known to speak to hummin'birds
anyway, I think.
Sep 18, 2016
Sep 18, 2016 at 5:19 PM UTC
Driving down a backroad in desolate Apulia,
a black cloud of birds formed behind a hill--
It became two then one again in dynamic flight,
resolving into specks and finally,
graceful darts of life.
In the air: Swerving, splitting, rejoining.
Aware of each and all,
a synchronous response to a secret call.
A wave in motion, a flowing organism,
never repeating but ever the same.
We stopped and looked with wonder--
How do they do that? And why?
A lightning bolt: Is it a protest? Pesticides?
What would we do when
topsoil blows,
oceans rise,
food is scarce,
and wells run dry?
Probably nothing as organized- or beautiful.
Oct 18, 2019
Oct 18, 2019 at 6:56 AM UTC
i've been wondering what it was like
to have words pour from your
fingertips like the cup of coffee he's
probably pouring for her right now
it always had a bitersweet taste to me
and so did he
the acrid taste was already enough
to make me falter
and when he came around she stuck
her foot in the door and her nose
up to me
no need for a going away
party
no need to bereave the death of
what could have been
i was already reading my eulogy
in tears at his mothers house
no cliche will ever get close to explaining
the sound of my feckless heart shattering
no one will ever know how much it
hurt to watch as she serpentined herself
into my place in his heart
so i grab my keys and drive
i end up on the side of a backroad
with my car turned off and a perfect
view of the days darkness creeping
in
i want to call him and scream at
the top of my lungs about how
he's trapped me in this
secret hell
but i know i've already lost
him anyways
so i get back in my car because
i and everyone else knows that
wishing on stars hasn't and
never will work out for me anyways
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 1:02 AM UTC
Bottles of alcohol squat on the counter, and cigarette butts
like yellow dead June bugs on the floor.
Bottles of shimmering reasons to not care about a hangover,
to leave prom early and rejoice in your parent’s absence.
Glistening necks, elegant glass nubs with no cap
tipped up into mouths screaming proud and hoarse,
We are STUPID! And CONTAGIOUS!
our ***** voices breaking under the radio sound
to a loud song whose generation no longer cares.
But we do, dumb boys and girls in a truck, rolling around town
like Haylee’s bottle of Jack Daniels in the trunk—
aimless, optimistic, and looking for reasons, so
buy a pack at the Chevron and let’s go smoke!
That’s enough, after all, isn’t it?
Reason enough to crack the windows, find a Carlyss backroad,
waste away midnight and half a tank of gas.
Still, as I drive on, a 90s rock station stimulating rotation of the spliff,
that smell puts my mind out of guitar solos and into placid hallways,
Smells Like a night in my dad’s apartment,
the stubbly couch with the nicotine blanket,
the Marlboro tone in the air, concrete crumbs and a lighter’s grating chrrt.
Divorce sounds like alcohol—
a word that burns, something sterilizing and for adults only.
But I don’t care, it’s my turn on the spliff,
and the backseat of my truck sounds more Alive
than the old horror movie rentals he would put on.
And why should I worry about what sobriety means
when we’ve been planning this night for months now?
All stocked up on Bacardi and Smirnoff Ice, Captain Morgan’s, Svedka, Mike’s Hard,
Swisher Sweets wrapped up in the **** bag—
We shoot our *** soldiers eager to start the war,
that war against a domestic unknown enemy,
an enemy dangerous and subversive, like sober-minded aspirations.
And while Zack rolls the blunt, while Jack finds his Camel pack,
while you ask for a hit of Haylee’s cigarette,
I fill a glass with water, my intention to hydrate
exactly as genuine as my intention to forget about it.
Feb 7, 2019
Feb 7, 2019 at 3:39 PM UTC
if you told me to stand on the ledge of a tall building
i'd smirk and look down from the edge happily
if you told me to drive 100 miles per hour down a backroad
i'd go 120 without blinking
if you told me to swim and swim and swim until i saw black
i'd dive as deep as i could and ignore the burning in my lungs
if you asked me
what do you fear most
i'd laugh
and say
i don't
Feb 9, 2018
Feb 9, 2018 at 3:51 PM UTC