"camry" poems
It started hot and passionate and blinding.
Then it ran,
ran from me
faster than the alpine highway or
an Afro over your cute lisp.
And a bus leaves for 13 colonies and 14 days and
pictures are all I have.
Colorful but in
50 shades of grey.
Then never a breath from you
on the home front.
And disappointment marks my eyes.
Running all over town with eyes
like video cameras and
minds like a metal detector.
We wish we could be a fly on the wall or a plant in the earth or a new hair on your chin.
All moments,
every moment,
we know.
My fiend.
Detect this on your police detector.
Little blue Honda that looks tan in the sun.
White Camry.
Up the street then back down.
Serpentine through the neighborhoods
hoping to see a familiar body,
but not be seen ourselves.
Every day
till July 15.
Then waving goodbye to an empty house I once knew.
Where I stayed too long and talked too much about nothing.
Too many memories to remember and flash before my heart.
Then I blink and they're gone and we've passed it.
And finally I've mimicked Taylor Swift
and wrote a song about Paris.
And boys in Montreal.
Late hours. Early hours.
All hours.
Spent engulfed in our own music from our minds.
Military men. Marines that cheat and break hearts.
not enough sleep.
Lots of tire on asphalt.
Up and down and up and down and back again.
Not enough French
and a brand new white iPhone.
And the sun sets on another day
and still the one thing I want
doesn't go my way.
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 11:57 PM UTC
For a week straight, I avoided going to the supermarket, even when my stomach grumbled and the fridge stayed empty and lonely. And instead, I looked through my binoculars from the tree house my dad had built with a few planks of wood, nails, and a rusty hammer. A place he’d built before I was put into my mother’s arms and put into a bright blue cradle. Blue as the shirt Abigail was wearing, the same day the cops busted her for giving head to my best friend Isaac in my Toyota Camry. Right in the middle of the parking lot of the supermarket, as I bought pancake batter and cage-free eggs for breakfast.
And Abigail never ate that meal after she spent a week wasting away in a cell block, reading JD Salinger stories over and over, as though his words could heal her marks and bruises.
Today, I made pancakes and eggs for breakfast. I waited for the TV to load a Netflix show, hoping Abigail had learned from her mistakes. She passed me the salt and pepper shakers, as I lit a cigarette, sat in a chair, and smoldered.
Abigail put her face in her hands, cried for a bit, even reached for the ***** bottle.
We went to the supermarket later, walked down one aisle, and picked up meat and potatoes. As we headed for the self-checkout line, I passed the breakfast section and saw the pancake batter and the eggs. Abigail crumbled to the floor, said, “I’m so sorry.”
After that, we never touched breakfast.
Jan 18, 2017
Jan 18, 2017 at 5:27 PM UTC
(rust if you must)
I like the way you get me where I go
in any kind of weather , like snow.
i love the freedom i have when i ride
in the drivers seat of you inside.
I dig the tunes we play along our path
I cant afford a New you , i have done the math.
But I love you no matter what others may think
you've Never thrown me of a cliff
or left me at the brink, i think
I drive to and fro to get me where i go
and No better car i own , so now i Say it So...
Rust if you Must , for i don't care about your Looks,
i can study about your kinds repair, if i should read Those books
Rust If you Must , I will always Love you,
For to Me My Camry have you Always been True. :D
Brain M.O.G.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 9:39 AM UTC
White Interceptors illuminate, cry, and leave ribbons of red and blue,
accelerating north on Featherbed. Streetlamps hang like midnight ornaments.
It starts to rain, turning the tar streets into slick mirrors.
I can see my lights lead me, sweeping the asphalt.
Kent is still too dangerous to gentrify. The trashcans are spilling
cereal boxes and empty two liters. I imagine a two-thousand year-old
mountain of trash, corroding and forming this neighborhood.
Barefoot children walk around aluminum cakes, reaching for the rain.
Skinny cats trot across the street, green and yellow eyes,
leaking through the dark. I name them after sicknesses.
The humming of my Camry grows louder as I squeeze by
dripping, patting hands. I now recognize the moon.
Buildings swoosh by faster and faster. Minutes go by and I
find myself on the outskirts; the trees sway, dodging rain.
My phone rings like a frenzied roach. Picking it up,
'Hello.'
'Sure. Yeah, I'll be right there.
'Nowhere.
'I'm going nowhere.'
The phone bounces on the grey seat. A screeching.
Coming to a stop; my chest almost touching the center
of the steering wheel. All becomes still.
A buck with velvet antlers stands in the rain.
It runs into the dancing forest. Much like me.
Oct 25, 2017
Oct 25, 2017 at 5:37 PM UTC
He picked up his last check and proceeded out the building into the cold winter snow.
Each footprint shaped like the tears streaming down his rough beard. Snowflake after snowflake each touching him with a cold flame, melting away the emotional armour revealing a little boy.
Entering the 96’ camry he starts the ignition, as the car slowly chokes out the cold air…
He sits there…
staring out the windshield, as the night incarcerates him.
Entering a mental Interrogation where there is no good or bad cop, just a man asking himself
“Why me?”
“Why now?”
“How am I supposed to…?”
“What I am I supposed to…?”
He strikes the steering wheel like hammer and nail.
Mouth silent, eyes screaming…
Minutes down the slushy road he arrives at the one story home. Approaches the small black door, opens it and is tackled by four warm children.
Each building back new pieces of armour within him. Their smiles and laughter freed him from the cold dark imprisonment into the new flickering flame of faith and freedom.
If only they could see his
worried thoughts
and beneath his eyes,
eyes that only revealed a good time...
If only they could see a man's cry.
Dec 19, 2016
Dec 19, 2016 at 7:04 PM UTC
Today was the first time I saw my grandfather since his passing.
He had a chubbier face
and was behind the wheel of a red Toyota Camry
next to a woman who wasn't my grandmother.
Becca was in the passenger seat beside me.
She didn't see my knuckles turn white
as I gripped the steering wheel tighter.
Then the light told me I could go.
She didn't see tears fall as I accelarated into the intersection
when all I wanted to do was turn around follow
the man who wasn't my grandpa
in a car that wasn't his
to a house I'd never seen before
and wouldn't miss when I left.
Jul 19, 2013
Jul 19, 2013 at 10:55 AM UTC
What do you have of mine, that I cannot take - a smile, a growl, a half-eaten sandwich with sad milky tastes? O the meals, you've eaten in my Camry on a beating mugged summer. Sour lemons, misconstrued carrots, uncomfortable plums - oh my peaches, and slipping undercover, covertly reaching for a compliment - back-handed, red-handed, now fingers crossed and arms too. No ring finger in sight, too good for a pinky swear. Mixtapes and Toronto opioid pamphlets - if I die in a Camry then I deserved it. Who the **** wants to die in a camry. Continue humming your incessant rap, I'll up turn my Winehouse knowing my 2000's were glorified. Burger King oiled bags musking the air. Sunday's are meant to be spent on the Oakville waters with hairs tied, iced coffee's, and wet lips.
Mar 10, 2018
Mar 10, 2018 at 12:28 AM UTC
This is a poem
about the day we first met,
and how you'd always say you knew
before even talking to me
that we'd get along.
This is a poem
about the book I was reading on day two,
and how you made fun of me
because some of the pages
still had pictures.
This is a poem
about your nickname,
and how I always thought it suited you
since it reminded me
of coffee mugs.
This is a poem
about your eyes,
and how they'd crinkle at the corners
and sparkle a lot
whenever you laughed.
This is a poem
about your laugh,
and how even though it was way too loud
it always sounded
a lot like music to me.
This is a poem
about a leather chair,
and how we'd always argue
over who got to sit in it
but ended up sharing anyway.
This is a poem
about my first kiss,
and how it took you way too long
to pick up on subtleties
but you made up for it pretty well.
This is a poem
about your beat-up Camry,
and how whenever I'd ask you
where we were driving this time
you'd only ever say "forward" or "adventure."
This is a poem
about clichés,
and how whenever I'm describing you
they're the only thing that comes to mind
even though I know it's lame.
This is a poem
about the first time I fell in love,
and how through everything that happened
I couldn't have asked for
a better first than you.
This is a poem
about the church parking lot,
and how the way you said goodbye
made me feel literally sick
and I didn't think the hurt would go away.
This is a poem
about you,
and how I can't still imagine myself
with anyone more amazing
than everything you were.
This is a poem
about us,
and how the ending came too soon
but I still wouldn't dare go back
to ever change a single moment.
Oct 16, 2013
Oct 16, 2013 at 7:36 PM UTC
You once locked me up
And could not find the key
Now you've still got me trapped here
With chains you can't see
You're keeping me bound
I will never be free
As long as you're leaving
These handcuffs on me
Mar 20, 2012
Mar 20, 2012 at 1:58 PM UTC
"It gets better" they tell you
Maybe they are right.
As I sway among a blurry haze
Of friends and guitar riffs
Arms around his neck
It feels like this "better" they always told me about.
But why don't they warn you
About the nights that feel like high school
And heartbreak and
Disappointment
That just because he looks and feels
A lot more like a man
Doesn't mean that he is one
That the same songs that cleared your mind
On a long quiet road at 7:00 am
Years ago
Would be what comforted you
In a lonely, tear soaked bed
Tonight.
Maybe I am still a girl.
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 12:20 AM UTC
Closing took an extra half an hour. Not that I minded, that was just more money in the bank. My foot was itching to press the gas behind a silver Camry, impatient to munch a few Tylenol pm and put the world on pause. I merged left slipping past, I noticed a little hand. A cinnamon child, cherubic and fresh putting her head out the car window. Her little head nested between her folded arms, her hair a coiled ebony flame. I remembered that; remembered that girl. I was that girl. Bathing myself in the wind, tasting the air from the passenger side window. Her eyes closed like iridescent oyster shells, her hope worn like a jacket. She had not a fear of the world, not jaded, not cynical, not damaged. I gazed at her in admiration, this brave little lioness. Sometimes it's the small things that pick us back up.
Sep 17, 2016
Sep 17, 2016 at 4:11 AM UTC
pain, pain,
regardless of the pain
i will be here in the rear-view
skating past and saying
'hell-ohhell-no'
to the passerby's in Jeep's and Prius
and Camry's
and Adidas shoes
all tattered and bled along highways
and back-roads of life.
when Robin Williams died by belt self-suffocation,
i was back in the dark of a previous mind and i cried
*** i saw myself in his suicide.
i saw my darkness colored in with pitch-black pastels,
*****
grass-stains,
and infidelity..
toffee from a homeless man
and
i hand him a cigarette.
my lungs were never my life-force - -
my lungs were never my life-force - -
all the blurry peripheral city lights
dancing in my withheld tears
as i marched from Douglas to Yates
and the old Korean karaoke bar
with the silent tv
dancing asians moving mouth-muscles for nothing
as the song sings someone else to sleep in Seoul..
the unwashed windows 3 floors up the office building are the strangest thing i noticed in this delicate flood of hopelessness, seagulls screeching from spider-men perches
on street-lamp,
power-line,
construction crane
"I want to be a man again
I want to be a mannequin."
Jun 7, 2017
Jun 7, 2017 at 2:36 PM UTC
Franz left his car keys in the backseat of his Camry,
He was locked out,
He was jimmying the door with a Swiss Army knife,
Trying to pry it open.
I just got out of class,
I held the knife as he pulled at the door handle,
Keeping him company.
Then there was a man behind us,
Yelling at both Franz and me.
Put your hands up and step away from the car,
A police cruiser pulled up,
Two more men jumped out
Already armed,
Guns drawn,
Aimed right between my eyes,
I can look down the barrels,
See glimmers of copper.
Put your hands behind your head,
Oh **** we're ******* dead,
Get on your knees,
Don't look away, look at me,
We both did what the men with badges and guns said,
We tried to explain ourselves.
One man picked me up off the asphalt,
Walked me over,
And pinned me on the hood of the cruiser,
The paint was fresh.
Another man took my backpack,
Shook out the contents,
His smirk told me he wasn't satisfied, not yet.
He then searched through my jacket pockets,
Patted me down,
A dark kid in nice clothes.
It all seems to check out.
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 2:53 PM UTC
I am from my family,
From the tree that I half-know,
From the half that I don’t know,
From the substitute half given,
To give me room to grow,
To at least semi-know,
What its like,
To know the whole tree,
I am from the friends I didn’t have,
And the friends I have now,
I am from the struggles of life,
And the disability’s,
That made it thrice as hard,
I am from the gifts,
Three of them all in a row,
That gives me eyes to see,
What others don’t want to know,
That gives me a heart wide open,
To help me give so much,
And hurt even more,
At the words thrown at me,
That gives me ears to hear,
What others never will,
That gives me hands to touch,
What others cast away,
That gives me feet to walk,
A path that others daren’t think to,
That gives me a mind to part,
The fog of misconception,
That gives me wild paths with a hundred choices each,
And a mind that likes them all,
I am from the uncertainty of what I shall do,
When the high school path ends,
And the college path begins,
I am from the times,
Of soccer ***** and dads’
I am from the middle house,
With a red door and a porch,
With a crab-apple tree,
With a Toyota Celica and a Toyota Camry,
And web-collecting Moses bushes,
With beige walls,
With a closet to the right and a bathroom straight ahead in the foyer,
With a red couch and a cabinet framed TV,
With a mirror on the wall and shelves up above,
With a once-white carpet and a computer,
With a book shelve set into the wall and an old broken inherited radio,
With hardwood floors in the kitchen-dining room and an old wobbly wooden dining table,
With a counter of doom and a pantry,
With white carpeted stars that lead up to the rooms and down to the family room-basement, bathroom, office, and laundry room,
With the master bedroom and after nightmare cuddle sessions,
With my old room, now my brothers, with yellow walls and a castle mural painted by my Mom,
With my playroom, then nursery, then my room again, with blue walls and clouds on one side over white wooden borders,
With door less closet and Joes’ old bed,
With a pink cubby-bookshelf and old wooden dresser,
And stained floors.
May 20, 2014
May 20, 2014 at 6:59 PM UTC
You won't impress me
With your Bentley
I'm just as beautiful
Driving my 17-year-old Camry
Shades on
Windows rolled down
Radio turned up
My spirit radiates
Across town
© JL Smith
Aug 27, 2018
Aug 27, 2018 at 2:32 PM UTC
"I love the sound of rain on the roof of a car, knowing you're inside, warm and dry" my father once said to me
"Until you get out," I responded, gazing into the night
"Until you get out," he confirmed.
And in that moment, on that rainy August night
I realized he was my car, keeping me dry from a world of rain
And at 19 I am starting to open the door,
Put my feet on the ground and try to keep them from getting wet
But home is always there
Whether I sit in the car and wait
or run outside, trying to beat the cloud from bottoming out
The world from bottoming out
To hell with metaphors
To similes and references
I don't need rain
Or an old camry
To describe how my father has always been there
To protect and shelter
And teach me to appreciate the little things
That you don't need much to be happy
And to work hard, earn that car that sits in your driveway
And lets you listen to the rain on the roof
And for a moment, just a moment
Time stands still
Like a raindrop descending from the clouds
And making its way all the way to the ground
Running down the windshield
Tracing the trail it leaves behind with my eyes
And while the world is waiting for that raindrop
I am just happy to sit and listen to the rain
With the man who taught me that when the rain does come
To sit in the car and listen to it with the people that you love.
Sep 28, 2017
Sep 28, 2017 at 3:59 PM UTC
The man of Tao
Seems dull
And confused
He is not driven on
By some shouting voice
Aimless and wandering
The customer service representative
Was a bit obnoxious
"What you can do
Is have a seat over there
For me please"
Okay?
I sat after a few moments
He just could have said,
"You are welcome
to have a seat, if you would like"
It's fine
What a terrible job
Working at a rental car place
A hierarchy of sales representatives
Trying to climb some ladder
I got the car
So I have it to go to work tomorrow
Drive carefully
Extra carefully
I remind myself
The car is a big boat
A big unwieldy Camry boat
Blah
Wish they would have had a Jetta there
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 3:21 PM UTC
Don't get into that car I scream
But I am trapped on the opposite side
of plastic window panes
Don't take her away
she's barely sixteen
all alone this time
(God, I'm glad its not me)
Don't get into that car I whisper
to a black Toyota Camry
sitting in the street
waiting, just waiting
for its quarterly visit
Don't get into that car I exclaim
to a black and white bumper sticker
that says "read" in chunky (ironic) block letters
Don't get into that car I choke out
to the four wheeled death trap
that takes away my sister
on an eight hour journey
back to childhood misery
that I myself
have only just aged out of
Don't get into the car I say
to the exhaust that's left in my sister's
wake.
(knowing it will make no difference)
Nov 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016 at 4:49 PM UTC
WAKINGUP...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I couldn't sleep again
only remembering thoughts
scattered like puzzle pieces
of back when
I was told in school
making friends comes second
happiness comes third...
MEANWHILE ATSCHOOL...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
in poetry class
we were shown
how words can make hearts melt like snow
and that we each have the power
to thaw out the cold
from anybody with a kindle in their soul
AFTER SCHOOL...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
in a parking lot
alone in my 98 Camry
I didn't just **** the engine
I snapped the cars personified neck
with the flick of my shaking hand
I hold a pen
a beautiful pen
from the girl who sat behind me in
poetry
from the glovebox
I hold a gun
a powerful fierce magnum
that spits fire across my temple
helping me get some sleep I've been dreaming
of...
May 17, 2019
May 17, 2019 at 10:32 AM UTC
Our teacher taught us about beautiful places
With the blinds drawn shut so we could see them on the overhead
The face on the mountain has since been washed away
The oak tree outside the window grows tall and strong to this day
The Amazon is disappearing
The projects down the street are still there
Nestled between dry sandy lots and convenience stores
Antarctica is cracking and melting into the sea
But I still drive by the 3rd-grade classroom
And see that same rusted green Camry parked across the street
And those things are beautiful to me
But I'm the only one, it seems, to see how
The power of the everyday, the unremarkable
Can leave you that mark, the one called beauty
And maybe I'm wrong but I feel it's my duty to inform you
That tropical jungles and mountain vistas are just a burden
Right now my thoughts are sporadic like a finch indoors
So I just open up my window and let that bird out
And while my brain is poked outside
I just take a moment to notice that house across the street from mine The bluish one I could've sworn had shutters
I notice the browning grass underneath the AC
The cracks on the sidewalk where the tree roots once reached for the sky
I notice the marks on the road where the car swerved and skidded to a stop
To avoid the now cracked telephone pole
And I see how they never really fade away
I remember that he was so young when it happened
But that I was just a stupid kid
And I think about what each day means to all of us
And how beautiful that really is
May 29, 2018
May 29, 2018 at 9:56 PM UTC