"backseats" poems
between the concrete river
& the park where the bums share a bottle
wrapped in a brown paper sack,
there is a cul-de-sac of plastic houses
holding hands & sharing manicured lawns
wooden cars that don't even make any smoke
drive down gray asphalt streets.
fathers that tell mothers they have jobs
wear down street corners sharing beers with the bums,
like they already are one.
all these paper families rubbing shoulders
until everyone has paper cuts.
going home to dinner around a table full of paper love.
suburbia is flimsy
paper towns shining white
smiling neighbors & shared lawns
paper people slowly falling apart.
couples with their tongues down each other's throats,
midnight in supermarket parking lots
dribbling beer in the backseat
they bought off the bums.
they say,
I love you, I love you, I love you.
until she leaves for a paper husband
& he leaves for a paper wife.
now they live on two separate cul-de-sacs
with the same cutout love,
as the parents they despised.
& when they have kids one day
they will tell them
*never kiss before driving,
never befriend bums,
or guzzle cheap beer in backseats,
or on park swings.
& never settle for a paper husband
or a paper wife.*
remembering the love
that was flimsy,
but never paper.
100,000 miles away from where they grew up
& 3,000 miles away from each other
3 kids each & plastic houses
rubbing shoulders & sharing lawns
living in a paper thin suberbia
chafing under their paper love.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 3:09 AM UTC
How many chairs have we parked ourselves on,
side by side
in these 6,205 days of marriage?
Side by side at our wedding reception
principals’ offices
school graduations
courtrooms
funerals
new baby nurseries
counselors’ offices
new cars and
bars.
In lawn chairs
pews
rockers
couches
backseats and
airline seats.
The size and shapes of the imprints
we leave behind
changing over time.
The faces of others seated with us coming and going.
Always, we have tried to leave a trail of love,
like the slime of slugs and snails.
And for each other, an extra measure.
Jan 30, 2013
Jan 30, 2013 at 6:32 PM UTC
The wine plays tricks on young mortals
On occasions bathed in pale sunlight
Reason will be lost lost well before dawn
The youth cannot rest
Till only caveman instincts persist
Do not try and hid, nor sleep
The youth will scream you awake
And the youth will give you drugs
And the youth will drag you across town
And shove you into basements, backseats,
Dive bars, dorm rooms, and late night beaches
With swimsuits strongly discouraged.
And the youth will leave you be
Only when the youth has burned you up
Leaving you to the heap of a soul you have left
The youth came last night
To finish me off.
They came with whiskey and women.
And I succumbed to the temptation
Of another blurred night.
Aug 29, 2013
Aug 29, 2013 at 2:44 AM UTC
She's in parties
& knees-up
She's half-seas over
& in the king's cup
She's in missionary
She's in backwards
She's on backseats
& dashboards
She's in fast lanes
& intersections
She's in full throttle
& Hail Marys
She's in obituaries
& cemeteries
Jun 21, 2020
Jun 21, 2020 at 8:38 AM UTC
i'm the queen
who reigns over the kingdom
of backseats of cars
and chipped coffee cups
and you're a king
who reigns over the night
and my crowded thoughts
Feb 8, 2014
Feb 8, 2014 at 8:41 PM UTC
I
The road flies past underneath the tires of the car
and there's a hazy blur as the trees fly by
as fast as the regrets flitting across her mind
like so many white lines falling beneath the left wheels
She's never been to Chicago alone before
Yet she's felt alone in so many places
It was time for a new environment and new faces
and to drink greedily from Illinois skies
She plans to drink more air than alcohol for once
To be drunken in lust or contentment at a push
To feel and experience fully without substance
To be intoxicated on some profound emotion
She pulls up to the curb and kills the engine
so that time ceases to exist
Heart pounding, mouth dry, she steps onto the hot pavement
Every movement magnified in a Midwest summer meeting
Her ankles wobble over 3-inch heels with each step
stumbling like so many times before, but different this time
She takes a deep breath of her new-found independence
and takes the first steps into the welcoming light of the sun
II
It's funny how philosophical eyes can interpret the mundane
Every step an existential crisis under the surface
But even so, the days continue to come and go
as sure as the sun, blocked by clouds occasionally, but still there
like figures in the city, obscured by passing buses
You slash tires and try to blow the clouds away
because even big bad wolves run out of breath
Aug 11, 2014
Aug 11, 2014 at 5:37 PM UTC
They want bodies.
Warm, compliant bodies. Moving parts.
Hands that open doors and flip switches.
Spines that bend but don’t break.
They want eight hours of labor, plus the commute,
plus the side hustle,
plus the ever-present smile that says,
"I’m lucky to be here."
But bodies need rest.
And there is nowhere to rest.
No shoebox. No storage unit.
No couch, no floor, no friend with a spare key.
Just asphalt and backseats—if you’re lucky.
Just parking lots and fear and pretending to be fine.
We’re told to buy the things that prove we’ve made it:
the ergonomic chair, the smart toaster,
the streaming subscription that numbs the noise.
But where do we put it?
Where do we live with it?
They expect us to consume while we disappear.
They want machines
—but with human elegance.
They want efficiency
—but with soul.
They want labor without the laborer’s needs.
We are the product and the producer.
The face and the function.
They demand dignity at the front desk,
but deny it in the zoning map.
We work full time,
and still live in our cars.
If we have one.
If it hasn’t been towed or repossessed.
If there’s a safe place to park without being harassed.
Why?
Why can you clock in at dawn,
and still sleep under stars you didn’t wish for?
Because they want bodies.
But they do not want the burden of keeping us alive.
Apr 2, 2025
Apr 2, 2025 at 6:41 AM UTC
I watched my very own
Charles Bukowski
eat a tangerine outside of
the arthouse
where we were reading.
His name is not really Bukowski,
but he has told tales in the same
vein as the Laureate of Drunkards
for longer than I have been alive.
I have listened to that same back alley
patois,
and barroom wisdom for long
enough that I feel a certain level
of comfort in calling the old gizzard
this municipality's own
Charles Bukowski.
The grizzled old poet
is telling wanton tales
of love and honeydew.
He goes on and on,
recounting the times
that he's drunk
strong potato liquor
with Bengal tigers
in the backseats
of roaring taxis
on his way to parties
hosted by zebras and
gazelles.
We each light a cigarette,
pausing to smoke for a while.
Seeking to continue
the conversation with
my salty comrade,
yet knowing my own
stories cannot compete,
I surge onward nonetheless.
His interruptions jam my
traffic before I can even make
it onto the onramp of his
particular, peculiar highway.
His mouth is already working,
though his tangerine consumed.
He's chewing his next story into
digestible, deliverable bits.
And, now he's chewing the rind.
His mouth,
his words,
his life,
and my own for all of it,
is full of
zest.
***
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2017
Dec 3, 2017
Dec 3, 2017 at 7:52 PM UTC
And oh I ache, like a creaking door, like a rusty faucet pipe. I can hear all the blood running it's errands in the sides of my head, it's this bathroom, this ******* bathroom. I feel like the turning handle on a mall gumball machine, no, then I feel like the ******* gumball, and I fall to the little black crevice with door, and you roll me out and pop me into your mouth, chewing hard and your spit is turning blue and I'm getting softer and softer in your lips. A caged Ocelot, and all I have to look to for a golden tomorrow is the poster of all the colorful wildlife, advertising this sickness. This pinging on a metal ceiling. This brownness. But my posters are of a different pair of devastating blue eyes that I know are evil too, but I pacify myself with the thought that they are so light because they are pure and clear, not because they are cold and hard. I started crying in my sleep. And I wake up with the streetlight shining through the window from that ***** alley that I love, and my face is so wet and so pink, and I say it's better that I cry unknowingly than consciously. I beg and toss for migration and distraction, chaos, oh baby where did you go? You can't leave me here with loose pieces of skin and a sick heart. You can't pick off the bottles on the ledge one by one with a rubber band and some pebbles and leave me with nothing. All I've got left are some nail polish bottles, some concert tickets, a few empty backseats. Things are either so incredible and hopeful or so ***** filthy, like gas stations, like the inside of ovens, and my fingers are becoming calloused. I'm floating like a cherry in a ***** shirley. Oh come, with your fingers in my hair, and kiss me.
Aug 20, 2014
Aug 20, 2014 at 4:37 AM UTC
speaking of drugs and soul mates,
somehow his dangly fingers found the inner stitches
of my pinkplated skinny jeans.
we fell into backseats and booths at bars that held
sushi and white powder lining caked sinks.
we giggled at how he said tomato, and i dissolved into
the sixth beer, the seventh, the eighth,
the lines between her lipstick.
we danced and screamed among stained floors, holding each other,
waiting until the moon lifted us.
he and i held hands as i ran between poles, pretending
i was the goddess of love, of lust, of night.
we made out and my head cracked upon glass,
his glasses slid upon pavement. he was nervous, i was laughing.
an american girl, his first time.
his fingers traced, cream upon coffee.
in the morning i found bruises upon my lips,
marks of eagerness, of mistakes.
we walked again, not hand in hand,
dreary and rainy, perfect London weather.
and i wondered if having tea
and crumpets would have
helped.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 2:28 PM UTC
we are the insects trapped inside homemade fly traps
glued on at the roof of the mouth
underbelly, I run around looking for trouble
trailer park princess, bar-fights in every space between my teeth
I'm a child of a child
I beat my paper wings against the shamelessness
Dance like the cigarette breaks are forever
Swisher blunts for the forget-me-not flowers inside backseats of cars, cabs, stolen automobiles
Revenge, locked jaw police officers like the fathers that never let you hold a gun so you become one
Taste blood, tongues, beauty in chaos
loose lips, stolen drugstore mascara and no more bruised knees
Boys like soft but you're the ******* Armageddon, knuckle-ring gods and all
so the men want to be kings and you grow up a feral cat sleeping in twin sized beds with a mouthful of curse words
Lord of the flies, lot lizards and truck-stop races
gritty bathroom graffiti is the cathedral but prayers never stop
Taverns with your name and the angels that spit
The television static never ends here, cicadas
Doors with mosquitoes held hostage, home for supper
wasted by dessert
Down in the dirt, grimy bathtub I unearth all the things I couldn't drink away; all the motel fantasies, cum-stained skirts and the neon lights waiting for the swarm
Aug 1, 2015
Aug 1, 2015 at 5:36 AM UTC
I don't want to write about sentimental ****
not about how your eyes were the color of the ocean at dusk or how you are
made up of stardust and moon beams
Let's be real, you and I were never about that
You and I were about ***
we were about the backseats of cars, broken condoms, and plan B
drunken stutters of affection pushing between colliding hip bones
nauseous mornings filled with clipped recollection of what may or may not have occurred
We were never about those three little words, we survived on two
but even **** you" held little meaning
cuming from you
You and I were about chipped teeth,
separate bills for the meal of the last girls heart
I sustained myself on what you could give me
and you ate me dry
You and I were never about "we"
You and I were never that gullible,
you and I were never about sentimental ****
like flowers and poems.
You and I weren’t,
But I was.
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 10:33 PM UTC
I want to go home but I don't have a home.
I live in the middle space between where you're driving from
and where you're driving to.
I live on backseats and inside large purses.
I live in vending machines
and beds you used to sleep in all the time
but don't sleep in anymore
because you moved away.
I live on driveways that got redone while you were gone,
and new haircuts you couldn't see because you weren't there.
I live on promises that we'll do something.
I live in those cool new sunglasses you got,
but they broke,
and I never got to see your wear them.
I live in the little space between you and your lover,
the one that feels like "I love you"
but really means
"I love you, but I'm not in love with you."
I live on unsatisfactory naps
and the island your friends put you on when you finally said what you'd been wanting to say.
I live under the rug when you complain about people behind their backs
because no one really knows how to tell someone they don't like them
for who they are...
as a person.
I live in every spare shoebox that isn't filled with notes
and gets jealous of the other shoeboxes that are filled with notes.
I live on the top bunk
and I've never fallen off
but I'm still kind of scared that I will one day.
I live on the laugh that lets me know you're still listening.
I live where I never wanted to live,
but I live here,
because I choose to live here.
And you live there because you choose to live there,
even if it doesn't seem that way.
I'm here and you're there.
I'm here for you and you're there for me,
even if it doesn't seem that way.
This is where I live.
You should send me a letter some time.
Apr 22, 2010
Apr 22, 2010 at 5:07 PM UTC
I didn't realize that I had missed the rabbits so
til I nearly stumbled over one in the dark and dew
impossibly still and also bounding with movement, vibrating
a tenacious anxiety reflected back to me in more than one
lost, drunken, exasperated moment
memories inevitably left in backseats and waterlogged journals
the thorny irony of holding fervently what this life means to me
and for me
knowing I've forgotten nearly most of it
to trauma
and to time
why would I tuck away the times I've made myself the image of my parents?
why cherish and return to the slur of dysfunction and imbalance
why build myself on the moments I broke upon
each falter is palmed inside me
slick and pressed with dust
the life of every love and bond
I can't release
for fear that I will sink into the sky
for fear that I've only ever been a reflection
is it empathy? maybe it's a pervasive fear of abandonment
as you cannot leave me if you need me
as you cannot fear me if you trust me
as you cannot without me
and I, you
Apr 9, 2021
Apr 9, 2021 at 12:09 AM UTC
"Lets go on a walk, Sam."
Let's go on a walk; go on a walk with Sam.
Mummy is driving, not walking.
She's being quiet;
I want to be quiet, too.
A Ford Escort is going past.
It's blue and the people inside
are laughing at each other.
The two girls in the backseats
have pretty brown hair but
they're too busy laughing to notice.
"Where did you get that hat?"
Where did you get that hat, Sam?
He needed it for the walk.
Laughter is weird. I do it
sometimes, but it's not with
other people. I'm okay with that.
When I laugh, people look scared.
Mummy says it's like a sonic boom,
and that's why people pull faces.
"Where did Jess go?"
Jess went on the walk with Sam!
Sometimes I wish I had a Jess.
Mummy got married at nineteen,
so I only have two months
and twenty-seven days
until I find my Jess.
Until someone loves me.
May 21, 2014
May 21, 2014 at 3:08 PM UTC
Soft Spoken Deals
A Rough Caress
and No Common Sense
Lead me to you
Cheap Whiskey
Inexperience
Flirtations
Made it come true
for one night
Hours pass by
fogged up windows
backseats
reeks of regret
Lost Innocence.
May 11, 2010
May 11, 2010 at 3:12 AM UTC
When people ask, I tell them:
*I noticed him because of those
beautiful eyes, all
backlit melodrama and mysteries
waiting to be
understood*
The truth is
they were soulless and empty and
hungry for something you
couldn't name.
You're not mine
You said.
No, I agreed.
But I could be.
Razzle-dazzle **** me
fast and ***** into the faux leather
of your backseats.
Darling, we're not in Paris anymore.
You want something fascinating
but I want something real.
We make do.
You say:
*I know you're a piece of ****
and I still want you.*
with the way it wraps around my heart
you'd think it was a
love confession.
Your teeth marks divide across
my skin like train tracks
You say my name like how
an addict says
morphine, nicotine.
I wonder how long till we crash.
I say:
*I hate it when you call me
"Darling"*
and with the way you laughed
I almost thought
I paid a compliment
This could be whatever you want it to be
Even if it's not love.
Nov 20, 2018
Nov 20, 2018 at 2:44 AM UTC
in the small towns with unknown names, mothers drive vans with grass stains painted across the backseats. in the winters coated with snowfall, mothers make hot chocolate for frozen fingers to grasp and sip, letting it settle on little tongues like some untold secret. in the storms, mothers bring a candle and a story from the past to light the darkness.
and what can a mother do when she does not hear the rain on the rooftops? how does one illuminate pale walls and faded curtains without a guide of light? you could never sense the darkness. you could never hold my hand. mother, my fingertips are poisoned. you weren't going to touch them anyways. you know he says there's a forest in my eyes. but you prefer the city skyline, don't you?
I told father I never wanted to see you again. besides, he doesn't have to. why should I stick to this cracked leather couch when you rest on some beautiful bed down the street? mother, you can only **** a married man for so long. the stones on his ring are brighter than you. I might've kissed you, mother, but there have been too many lips pressed to mine, and you're immune to this sickness, and what is a sign of love without a flicker of pain?
when is the last time I smiled at you? there is a photo somewhere and I am nestled in your arms, and I'm wearing a red dress, and I think I would have slipped away if I knew who you really were. mother, do you want to see the cuts on my wrist? I should've given you that suicide note. remember that day you thought I was sick? I guess you never saw the pills were gone. you shouldn't have kept the matches so far away when you knew I loved the fire. you know, mother, I bet you don't know what a trigger feels like. you know, I was ten when I decided that I did not love you. I am the sliver of moon starving to vanish in the sky and mother, I swear I'll be new.
Feb 24, 2014
Feb 24, 2014 at 11:23 PM UTC
The amphetamines made me god
A street corner king known across town
I feel blue as the pavement moves beneath my feet
I feel gone as the moon comes on
That flickering flourescent light
Down between the streetlights
The record scratch like a Cadillac
I've mistaken for a Buick
The cigarette flick from his window
Spins through the night like a pinwheel
Exploding sparks on the asphalt
Choked on exhaust
Thoughts of you walk beside me
Etched on my bones is your name
I wouldn't call it living
Just existing
Cars headlights sirens backseats
My head is spinning as he asks for change
"No but here's two cigarettes."
That ought to get him through the night
You got a light
On upstairs?
You got a light?
Someway for me to see when the streetlights stop
The road takes on the country
The dividing lines turn to stones and sticks
The sound of night as cows fall asleep
The fields are full of mushrooms that glow caps in the moonlight
I used to pick them at the edge of the forest
I once was happy with the thought of "maybe" having you
Now I don't do much of anything but **** myself quickly
With no one to stop me
With no light
Somewhere between the star-choked horizon and the sea
You fall asleep with another
Your heart gives a flutter when he says your name
When you kiss his neck
When you fall asleep
Dreaming seamless dreams of children and sunlight
Something in storybooks once known as true love
May 2, 2012
May 2, 2012 at 10:14 PM UTC
Our purest selves
Reaching deep
Warm and wild
Our blood thunders
Tearing through elastic highways
Driven by that rough, rubbery pump
Congregating like pack animals
Evolving thick as thieves
Rough and oily with dull wit and sharp tongues
Minds crackling with electric waste
Droning in the distance
Responding to wide signals
Follow follow follow
Driven by primitive urges and flights of fancy and pickling liquor
Rough clumsy fumblings in backseats
Stolen moments behind straight backs
Populations pour from our bodies
Often devoid of purpose
Leaving us with shredded dignity
And tired blue collar hands
Where our dreams come to an abrupt halt
It is all we can do to live in the present
For in being ill we have drawn a line through our future
Nov 15, 2014
Nov 15, 2014 at 5:54 PM UTC
Emotions relaxed in reverse,
I can’t imagine it any worse.
The sound of chalk against the wall.
The sound of talk, outside the hall.
The girl of such tall words and steep opinions,
never found the time to leave her voice,
and lend it to another’s choice.
She walked across the smoke filled room,
as if no one was watching,
as if no one noticed.
I see my death in her eyes,
the way a man can only wish he dies.
Wearing that aged cardigan from her father’s early years,
she divided her tears,
and gave me that look,
you only find in mirrors.
You were used to the cold nights,
and the lingering midnight flights.
Driving down a smooth cigarette,
where we were going,
I had not known yet.
On the drive home,
we sat in the backseats of your friend’s car,
The distance never seems as far.
Too many of us for one car.
We left our shoes at the beach,
by nightfall no one could see,
you touch your toes to me.
The reflection of the lights,
and music blaring,
allowed me to see,
you were staring.
Jan 28, 2013
Jan 28, 2013 at 12:56 PM UTC
Daddy's little princess such a tarred delusion in white.
Let's forget all it's only between me and you and the page tonight.
False hope's and new found delusions let me slide this hand up that skirt .
Maybe it's wrong but what could feel more right.
You wanted to taste the edge so I took you to the razor.
embraced are sins and found new freedoms sweetheart was it as wicked as you could have ever imagined?
Maybe I'm the worst but it wasn't what you clawed into these shoulders last night.
Cheap moments wasn't it a hell of a time.
Matchbooks of places road stops of emptiness wasn't it a dream that new a nightmares embrace?
If you need a friend it wasn't in the cards but torment is truth mired by ********
can I interest you in one last fix.
Sweet nothings weren't on the menu but the passion could have burnt us both.
I hold no remorse but understand every scar holds a memory I wont bother you with that greater good speech sweetheart it's simply goodbye.
A quick slap beats a broken desire the magic was pure no matter the cancer we shared
in backseats and empty nights regression.
I recall you although I would never admit .
Every scar I treasure for sometimes your the one that I can never forget.
I'll wash it away and hopefully for you it will be something better not to have been.
**** the stories the page always makes us bleed in the end.
Paper cuts are that and nothing more.
Nov 19, 2013
Nov 19, 2013 at 11:19 PM UTC
She should have been fine,
Right school, good family, right color,
But she was at the age when things go wrong.
She began to feel the weight
Of weightless things
And the need to be someone
No one could be outside the cover of a magazine.
So the doubt crept in and
Muddied her image in the mirror
Then frustration took hold
Because she couldn't reach a
Place that never was
Or ease the pain of that failure.
One bad day, the devil whispered
Through the mouth of a boy who knew her pain
In his hand a pill, he said,
“It's cool, everybody does”.
But she heard through tortured adolescent thoughts
“Here is peace, acceptance is here, belonging “.
And so she did and did
And when she tried to turn away
The whisper became a shout, then a command
And the pill became a needle in her arm.
When money ran out, she started selling
Pieces of her soul in backseats, or ***** hotels.
The devil left her then, he had won.
No more promises, no dreams, or hopes or even fears
Only the need for something
No one ever needed.
Her world became an illustration
She maintained with just enough sense
To keep her on the street, but
It wasn't enough in the end.
Her mother found her in her bed
Afterward the woman always said
“She looked so peaceful and
So young. “My little girl “.
Somewhere the devil whispered,
“Peace” and laughed.
Jan 30, 2017
Jan 30, 2017 at 4:59 PM UTC
there are days
i only feel like a burden.
someone who fills backseats
so that someone could be at the front.
and the weight of my own bones
are too heavy for a family name to carry.
heavy enough to crush a sorry girl.
my breaths are sometimes apologies
people refuse to hear.
im sorry if i am this way.
i wish i could be something more.
Oct 26, 2020
Oct 26, 2020 at 8:32 PM UTC
I pray you burn the wood you carved us into, because I'm tired of fighting this fire alone.
You've roasted our love away, carving us into a childhood bunk bed and praying we stay past our adolescent phase.
I want to kiss you under our initials, show you how heated I can get under your gaze, smolder the letters of my name because I don't belong on bunk beds.
I belong in backseats, and kissing behind your mothers back when she's making us dinner.
I belong as a secret, I belong on letters you were never suppose to send.
Lick the envelopes with love you aren't suppose to have for me, tell your mother it's a platonic relationship and your father I was the kind of girl you'd marry.
I don't belong on bunk beds, so don't put me above your head.
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 6:09 PM UTC