"chassis" poems
They drove me across the country,
from the busy city where we departed
to intimate villages where they recessed,
and spent a star filled, moonlit night
singing songs,
their bodies casting long, wavy shadows
from campfires they huddled around.
Just as I got too cold and my wheels
couldn't turn anymore
did they finally turn the spark plugs,
revving and igniting my despair and sensitivity
producing heat.
Sometimes they pushed
until I shoved
and scraped my rubber
on asphalt,
on rocks,
on sand,
on boulders big and small,
and I hit a flat-line;
the air I could hold in
no longer.
They rode me into a forest
whose undergrowth was as thick
as a bears' fur during the winter,
and redwood that spanned the horizon
you thought it could pat the constellations.
A forest teeming with life that
one would react like Wendy from Peter Pan--
never wanting to leave Neverland.
And I could see it in their
soft faces and squinting eyes,
bright and lit up with joy,
every detail apparent
as if I burst my headlights into high-beam,
directly on them.
It was there I ran out
of gas and my engines
parched for oil,
from the endless adventure
that was exhilarating and memorable.
One could, as a result,
easily forget responsibilities.
There was no service or refill station nearby,
so I was abandoned where I parked,
flat tires, rusty hood, broken chassis,
dilapidated suspension.
I've proved my worth
from when I was brought in
and over time
it wasn't enough.
Only repairing, never maintaining.
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 2:11 AM UTC
*With one old roller skate
I'd be out to play
The local boys
Would stay all day
Remove the straps
You’re left with a chassis
Then an old Beano book
It looked real classy
Now to the longest bank
Only one car a day
Place the book on top
We’re on our way
Sitting low legs outstretched
Leaning back the race begins
Round the corner leaning to the side
Riding our skateboards with pride
No designer logo
Or high speed wheels
To come to a stop
We used our heels
Those summer days we were young
Happy children having fun
It cost not a penny to improvise
One old skate with a book the right size
It's quite sad to see
All the waste today
Expensive toys
Just thrown away*
Mar 30, 2012
Mar 30, 2012 at 1:06 PM UTC
I take her frame in both hands,
she lets me go for a spin.
Chassis built for performance,
responsive to every move,
I steer her around the circuit.
Following every change of direction
with timing and precision,
she lets me hug the curves
just long enough to feel her power;
not long enough
to lose all control.
Mar 16, 2011
Mar 16, 2011 at 6:30 PM UTC
I miss the drunks. The y3lling.
The inhalation of beer and cigarettes
Chased down by ego and godlessness.
How many times
hqve I written to this song,
and never heard beauty once?
Like the sweet pinch of a grapefruit,
before the sunset of sweat,
the same sunset that hailed warfare for boys.
I loved you so much once,
I still do, but you are like mist,
and I am blind.
I miss backstabbers, creeps, catfish,
vampires, crows,
an angel.
When I was young I would screech down the hill
in my toy truck,
plastic chassis a powerhouse,
canary and howling,
I'd crash into the same cherry tree a million times.
Call me Avalanche.
Call me Indisputable.
Call me the Powerhouse.
Call me,
I missed you.
Sep 10, 2013
Sep 10, 2013 at 12:02 AM UTC
Father, Son, Mechanic…
Man, I’ve wanted to talk to you – really talk to you – for some time now.
to see your face in front of me, instead of dangling from necklaces,
or hanging, melancholy, over sexless couples’ beds.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading all that stuff you wrote (supposedly),
and I’ve enjoyed it, Man, I have.
but I keep wanting it to be a letter, when in the end it’s just
a bipartisan explanation – an engineer’s guide to
building a pretty vehicle around a faulty engine.
I always see you, arms spread,
sprawled across the older bitter-america’s steering wheel.
my mama would tease me, saying you’d want me to help some day.
but you and your cronies drove me like a beat-down El Camino,
joyfully taking me through wrong turns and bumpy streets
waiting for my chassis to split.
and once I ran out of gas to offer, you refused to touch me at all,
letting me rot in your cobweb garage.
and all those ******* in turtlenecks and polos popped,
they’ve gleefully branded your logo on their chemical biceps
and gaily explain how close you were.
how they knew you like no one else did,
how you guys didn’t have a connection, but a relationship.
people should only let their mechanics touch their cars, though,
and keep their innards free of oily fingers.
to be honest, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to this establishment again.
it’s a little too clean for my taste, and your prices are way to high
especially when all you get is a little peace of mind and a sense of humbled grandeur.
don’t worry about the car, though – you can keep it.
you’ve sort of spoiled all its good intentions,
so I’ll be buying a new one sometime soon.
I guess I’ll be taking a taxi.
No, actually.
I’ll hitchhike home.
Jul 12, 2010
Jul 12, 2010 at 11:20 PM UTC
We watched the sun fall down and scrape its knee again, across the horizon.
Effusing amaranth, carmine, and cochineal across polluted vista.
It felt petty to issue guttural laughs, or engage the myofacial crescents beneath its visual lament as the Earth turned its back again.
We watched the sun rise, bruised, tender and shy this morning.
Its muddled contusion obviated by the gauze of fog.
A mottled neophyte -
Luminescent crepuscular rays defied dregs of interstellar debris and cloud.
Aching to kiss your skin -
In stellar cloud nursery, it eschewed the torque of orbit and gravity - eras before verity of your essence.
Humbly settling concentrically about oblate sphere, and gaseous tome.
Latterly - It altered the atmospheric pressure on the other side of the planet a week antecedently, as you clung to your dream lattice, and Earth innately turned oblate nucleus.
Its intent –
A veneration of you.
It bade the atmosphere convey a breeze echoing about your dermis, as it gilded your frame laconically, betwixt shaded steps beneath cloud and arbor.
The sun yelled at me at its pinnacle today,
Pallid bone – molten - miasma of rage
Its core missive garnered inertia – coronal plasma warping ellipsoid factions in inflections of elusive filigree
Pirouetting spicules spattered smelted torrents in the dismal anchorite
Atomic schism – silent but felt
It stoked humidity under shadowed niche - casual vaporous smears evinced no clemency.
Flesh torqued, and seized beneath itself, briny globules shed from puckered pore.
Culminations of sensitive fluid sacs scorched into the shallows of my chassis.
Insignia knit in cellular shrapnel
The sun ignored me today – or perhaps, it was I it.
Enigmatic tenacious resolution – an echo of its gravitational collapse
Inverse thermonuclear fusion
It is not fear in a relationship that keeps you apart, it is neglect of the infinitesimal.
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
Deep fried asphalt crawls beneath my wheels as I pedal on, pursued by buzzing flies
and salty drops of sunscreen sweat sting my squinting eyes.
Caffeine coursing through my corporal chassis fuels my weary legs
and mutes the screaming mind that wants the same respite for which my human vessel begs.
Be the road before me treacherous, the hills before me steep,
God heals my aching body every night with fitful sleep.
Jul 27, 2013
Jul 27, 2013 at 2:24 PM UTC
My favorite people are women
Right from the very beginning
Let the boss kick your tail
Let the stockmarket fail
In her arms you will know you are winning
Some come with the loveliest chassis
They like to put fog on your glasses
Pursue till you catch one
Persistance will fetch one
Who'll love to receive your cool passes
MY FAVORITE PEOPLE ARE WOMEN
THEY LOVE COWBOYS AND LAWYERS AND ******
THEY GIVE THEIR LAST CRUMB
MY MOTHER WAS ONE
MY FAVORITE PEOPLE ARE WOMEN
She has the same notion as you son
She's not a big teaser to out run
Commit a wee bit of chasing
Then it's time for embracing
Your libido is due for some fun
As you've kept your nose to the grindstone
Receiving great love from a fine one
If you're worn to deep slumber
You can take down her number
There's always another night, Son
CHORUS
Jan 23, 2011
Jan 23, 2011 at 4:43 PM UTC
She frolicked through trouble, and dandled with mischief. Alison Wonderland; everything I wished I was and so much more. Ever emanating her doe-eyed façade; proclaiming our jests mere “mischief.”
Yet, an unspoken verdict (Foretaste? Conception? Notion?) had cloaked the truth: wickedness rippled beneath our parade.
I nuzzled her contours; my peripheral eye – nailed to her profile, her blueprints, her chassis. I stalked her mirage – dancing with vapor.
She glissaded about, no fool to my truth, varnishing my mantle.
I belonged to Alison: perpetually at her side. Our couplet became a “we.” So, We regretted nothing. We veered for the pyre: caroming(skimming?) those embers alit with vice.
She narrated my mental seminar. Discarding my dogmas to uphold her own; and thus, my mind was hers.
My mind was her mind.
Alison made heads turn, and mouths water, as we sidled – hand in hand – down the street. She was my Christmas morning: each colloquium – giftwrapped with finesse. She personified paradise, she illustrated utopia. Hatching our Carnival; netting us, enamored, sidling the Carousal. We’d skim, we’d sail, her halo – my fossil. Her lips, her eyes, her hands… they echoed the innocence of a child. Niave, innocent, and giftwrapped in wonder.
Little Miss Wonderland: my very own fairytale. She was mine alone; she was mine to keep.
Did I want her, or did I want to be her?
Alison Wonderland.
Her aura – so celestial – paralleled my prose. When she banished my husk – Maple Thatcher – I cackled good riddance… And I grew a new personality to accommodate her own.
For, without Ali – devoid of our we – I doubted the very existence of me.
On my composition, she bestowed rhythm. She gave tune to my silence; her chimes, her cadence. My ink was her song – fusing a symphony. A symphony of Alison: the melody to solidify our tryst.
My mind was her mind.
And yet… somehow, I missed a carriage – or two – aboard her train of thought. For, the same felon spiting my existence, was the angel I loved to life. Gladly, I huffed, and I puffed, and I blew Maple down.
Fused against Alison, I needed none of Maple.
Carnival infatuations…
Alison Wonderland.
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 8:04 AM UTC
I've always been wary--
and celebrated my potential
Betrayal
and
Certain
death(.) (oh)
At The Juice Joint.
All wet. (incorrrr
--ect.)
Applesauce. (non
sense.)
All dolled up. Showed off my
Gams
And Big Jazz
(eyes).
Wanted to get spifflicated with some
Dolls
and
Jellybeans.
...my fella.
?
Didn't have enough clams.
Any of us.
We
're the new
Lost
...generation.
I thought I'd keep the bank open,
but
interest wasn't given
Cash or Check:
didn't really matter.
Might've been
the
cat
's
meeeeeow.
And
how.
Ahhhhh...
we all had our glad rags on.
the Daddies hit on all sixes.
Let's get ZOZZLED on some
jag juice,
dewdropper.
Deeeeeewdropper. ~errrrrrrrr.....
Though giggle juice is more apt
...for me.
Leave the Mrs. Grundys at home...no fire extinguishers allowed.
How ironic.
You were the extinguisher.
Bring Your Own Knife
, we said.
It's a Stabbing Party
, we said.
I didn't want to handcuff you. Didn't want to exchange manacles.
("No, I'm no one's Wife, but OHHHHH, I love my Life.")
I percolate.
I percolate.
I percolate.
I'm not your quiff.
...not your sheba...or a vamp.
Just admire my
chassis
if you will.
they
all
do
The engine'll purr
for you,
~~if you turn the keys just so
Everything was
Copacetic.
Copacetic...
For a time.
(get'hotget'hot!)
Caesar's here.
Hussssshhhhhhhh...
...speak
~~eeeeeaaaaassssyyyyy.
And then I realized.
I'm tired of being Caesar
( . )
Mar 17, 2013
Mar 17, 2013 at 7:32 PM UTC
Leather seating, closure in these moments
while we’re on the longest of this drive,
Maps stuffed in the glove compartment; where
shall we go on this long road?
Not giving hearts, but giving you my word,
in a blue chassis ride, skipping gears to get to five.
Going down hill, and I’ll put it down into glide.
I’m not as neutral, to express my eyes, reflecting
all the pretty mirrors of your body.
Lap sitting, holding onto my steering wheel,
hand on a rear; wipers set on low. And I’ll kiss you
one last time, as if the last becomes the first.
_Blue Nissan,_ tell me if you’ve even been in a
ride like this before? When your empty pockets are
full, and you’re driving a car you could never afford.
I promised myself, not to do the wrongs I do to
myself to someone I love.
To not go on stealing hearts, as if this world
doesn’t have too many bandits.
My hands are vowed to only rest their desires
on you. These lips are a secret only to know
your ears.
This love I can only gladly give to my God,
You, and His people.
Death isn’t an end to us, but just a new beginning
we can only get to one by one.
So keep my seat warm up in Heaven, and I’ll keep
yours too if it’s me to go before you.
Whether sickness is chasing my lungs,
cancers diagnosed on my list of problems,
Let’s just be running towards the days of life you
and I both still have.
And like this drive,
with no rush to our final destination,
But enjoyment of all we’ll experience on this
road of life.
May 14, 2022
May 14, 2022 at 11:46 AM UTC
*ants crawl on
slowly*
1.
left eye is hopping fast for days now
and time's but a fair damsel
of delightful illusion
how she taunts and teases you
into sweet oblivion
of wickedly sensual basking
she drugs you with deep charisma
and struts at the doorway of your senses
she clutches onto the tracks in your mind
and claws deep into your ragged psyche
that same old song playing
over and over...
........over
2.
see right through train's chassis
rail sleepers spin vigorously backward
in such frightful haste
to get nowhere
no-one knows the real speed of time
out there.....
but for mere mortals
it's leniently paced in adagio
and parceled in mellowed excruciation
as ants walk serene
alongside the tracks
3.
creep into chaotic patterns
fall into hell
through a secret back door
even satan knows not of
as perched as he is
on his oh-so lofty pile of ordure
his blind heart
sees not
the strobed tracks
of your visiting soul
4.
take a syncopated shot up the arm
from the foul fang of a kind sinner
while saints bathe in fat glory
elsewhere
when you look again
you lie alone in a corner room
broken
yet untethered
tracks to heaven so obscured
by
your paradoxical attempts at levity
on the twisted playground of life's malady
5.
how badly you tripped
so many **** times
you ....got in the way
of your
own
remise
each time you fell
you looked UP
expecting help
when all the while
the answers lay
at your feet:
[your own mistakes are authentic and real;
you try to fox-tread out
but trying to turn your back on a *****
called destiny - equals catastrophe personified
oh, she WILL beckon you back
with her crooked finger
most kindly
to ensure no overdue lessons wait too long.....]
*the ants crawl on
so
slowly*
S T, Wed 10 July 2013
Jul 10, 2013
Jul 10, 2013 at 6:52 AM UTC
If you were an automobile,
You would be out of my price range,
Yet here you are, parked in my bed,
Complete with all available luxuries.
Your revving engine, sends a thrill through me,
When I'm sad, your wipers clear my tears.
When the night is cold, your heat keeps me warm.
I love to run my hands along your sleek chassis.
Polish up all my favorite bits.
I love you more than a vato loves his low rider.
I love you more than a redneck loves his pickup.
I love you more than speed racer loves his Mach five.
I love you more than Barbie loves her pink convertible.
You're my Hot Rod,
You take me places, nobody else can.
You and I will be riding of into the sunset,
Until the wheels fall off.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 10:06 AM UTC
Your legs go all the way from your flip flops
right up to your cut off jeans
when my momma warns me bout certain girls
I can see you're the type that she means
There's a look in your eye
and a thing in your walk
that i struggle to fully describe
and everyone knows when your man
he'll sure be lucky to survive
you're trouble in a cut offs
so everyone says
but I think you're just misunderstood
and wrapped in that passionate chassis
is a heart that feels nothing but good
so sure I'll go to the dance with you
then maybe down to the lake for a walk
we can sit on the shore til the sun comes up
and listen to music and talk
and when we get back home next morning
and I drop you early and bright
you can guess what the neighbours are saying
but hell we'll know we did right
so trouble in cut offs she aint all that bad
not as bad as you'd like her to be
there's a side of her people don't think of
a side that chose to show me
May 28, 2010
May 28, 2010 at 4:45 PM UTC
The fence needs fixing,
I'm sure we can make it through,
Edging forward all seems good,
Too late the wheels start to spin,
The chassis sinks,
The heart sinks,
A long walk back and time reflect,
How easy it is to get stuck in mud.
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 4:51 AM UTC
Venus of Willendorf
You seemed so distant
Cool and aloof on slide
Perhaps I was projecting
In the warm dark womb
Of Lecture Hall B
A silent world but for fan racket
From the Kodak Modal 4600
Eager to please on stiff little legs
Nosing toward the screen
Where you teetered
On impossible feet
Fighting a losing battle
With gravity I found
Touching, *******
No one could ignore
A chassis built
As the bluesman said
For comfort not for speed.
I hear Willendorf is nice
This time of year
Hint of fertility in the alpine air
Your crazy braids beckoning
Braille to a blind man.
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016 at 7:41 AM UTC
I never meant to fall
but sunrise greased your chassis.
The crest and fall of your jaw—
the blade and bend of it,
mudslide contouring of it—
dropped me ribless at your feet.
O promising land, crisp field
of flesh, whose fireflies
steered my eyes in the darkness—
your land, where my eyes had strayed—
scaled over eolian caves, the slick
basins of your clavicle, onto
the hexa hillocks clustered
like honeycomb chambers
on your abdomen.
I never meant to fall,
but the cursive lines of you,
I might have trod with loose eyes—
even now, there is a voice
drawing them to strike
at the aquifer beneath your waistline,
voice of vined thirst,
of torso and tug—
with them, I struck and drowned
Jul 31, 2021
Jul 31, 2021 at 4:28 AM UTC
She doesn't start in the morning
like she used to,
and her gears are slipping.
Lost some of her pep
going down the street,
and is always going in for
something or other.
There's that clicking noise
whenever she takes off;
her chassis is sagging.
Leaves an inconvenient,
messy puddle
when she's parked for too long.
Maybe it's time.
Time to clean out
all her nooks and crannies
of the detritus
of years of family life,
and haul her off to the bone-yard.
Perhaps someday,
new life will come from
some old parts.
Until then,
let her sit and finish rusting
with all the other used-up
relics, loved once and forgotten,
compressed by time
into shapelessness
in rooms stinking of ***** and disinfectant.
Apr 11, 2016
Apr 11, 2016 at 10:31 PM UTC
I am ready to get on the cycle and ride
Feeling the highway breeze coming from the air in provide
Being tough with no disturb
But there are road laws including the curb
Cars, Buses and trucks, take notice
Observe cyclist style
Yes, watch me move on the highway while
I have a date with my own destiny
My arrival will be eventually
I am moving with grace
One would think I am in a race
The sleek motorcycle chassis
So this trucker wants to be sassy
I will show this trucker who this Motorcycle rider can do
The trucker deserves my highway skill test
If he fails, I could care less
My maneuver being savvy
Let’s see if this trucker has a load he can carry
The techniques I can do
The trucker simply can’t follow through
So I am dashing off into the afternoon sun
Being destination bound and looking to have fun
Sunset, my day will be done
Feb 29, 2020
Feb 29, 2020 at 8:59 AM UTC
Unity through working together
For we cannot exist without each other.
I need my lungs which need trees,
Who need the sun to rise every morning.
The same sun who kisses my cheek and warms my heart,
Darkens my skin and calms my soul.
As joyful music enters my ears, my mind is quiet
And a gentle smile forms-
Easing left over pain from the day before
Releasing serotonin in my brain, and
Signaling to my body that we will be OK.
Because today is a new day,
A new chance to live harmoniously with the other beings
With whom I co-exist;
To dwell on earth in synergy
With the energy of atoms outside my mortal chassis.
Those which I cannot control
But upon which I must depend
To simply
Subsist.
For alone, I am nothing but
A random collection of carbon and hydrogen atoms
Vibrating at different frequencies.
But with the help of gravity and other natural forces
They are unified into one.
Moving together,
Pulsing together,
To form the being that is me.
Jul 13, 2015
Jul 13, 2015 at 2:34 AM UTC
Smoking is a working class disease
They said; he smiled at this.
Lean in body and broad of mind
With shirtsleeves rolled,
A modern man's philosopher
Who stuttered over the words
Like his fingers did over her chassis
Detroit rolling iron beneath his palms
Grease and lubricant under the nails.
The cigarette cherry glows in the dark
Giving him a hard edge aura
The gloaming settling into the lines
Of his work-worn face
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 4:19 PM UTC
She suffers from bouts of amenorrhea,
She masticates as often as the day is black,
You, her associates, claim to have no idea,
The young ossein—aged with many a crack.
The chassis appears, to you, to be gaunt,
No fervor for coitus intimates strangeness,
Her color looks like she is inclined to haunt,
Her apparel— ill-fitting, not made to impress.
When will you void your lack of knowledge?
She needs someone to come to her aid,
Take her hand and lead her from the edge,
Instead of averting, trying to evade.
Go and lead her in the right direction,
And help desist her craving for perfection.
Nov 27, 2011
Nov 27, 2011 at 9:49 PM UTC
The barrier of poison and ****
You're better than us
A metal chassis of rust
Anonymous.
This and that and jist and just
An abyss full of fuss
No love or lust
Anonymous.
Cease to speak or discuss
A might or a must
The empty pie crust
Anonymous.
Preference to throw or ******
Detest and disgust
To cry or get crushed
Anonymous.
Nov 12, 2016
Nov 12, 2016 at 1:17 AM UTC
maybe he left his wedding ring in your **** by accident
that night when you told me
you wanted me to **** you
wearing his sordid black suit but
it was about four sizes too big and his
heart was four rooms too small.
i forget that the anthropoid chassis
possessed no ****** limitations.
and yet you were there,
wailing out cherries and
casuistry and swollen
macabre in absinthian
vinegar, wearing the dress
that i hate.
you have weak wrists,
you bruise by blue tuesdays.
--
maybe i left my gun in your **** by accident
that night when you told me
only love and explosives
got you off. i of course, went
for the least dangerous.
you forget that the anthropoid intellect
possessed no sadistic co-existence.
i'm just an ulcer when i am
inside you. you scratch me raw
and you make me
take off that face
that you hate.
my poetry lingers tight-lipped in taciturnity,
keeping you wet on your deathbed.
Nov 19, 2010
Nov 19, 2010 at 4:49 AM UTC
(The Art of Failing Goodbye)
I covet your closeness; how could I not? You were my world once upon a mime. Honestly. Though my pride will deny it, our demise left me discarded. Hiding amongst the few collateral souvenirs: stupidity and bitterness.
I bestowed to you the best of me; although you never asked me to. My heart, body, and soul - yours for the taking - a decision made on my own accord. Because you never asked me for any of it. You never asked me to do the things I did. But I loved you - innocent as that. Thus, relinquishing logic entirely.
Hardly more than a stranger, I felt I knew you; unaware of the lidded fabulist within. A mere tourist of my chassis; enthralled by my looks. Enthralled by just me. “In love” so deep, you attempted suicide twice. Upon my rejection – in theory. They almost beat you to death, and left you to the wolves. Deserved it? An understatement tenfold. And yet. My compassion was what saved you.
I protected the same entity who pulverized my own.
They all said you were no good – they said a mythomaniac would leach onto me until there was nothing left, ****** dry – then you would leave. Onto the next; life on the move. Daddy said you’d leave me in shambles. Was he right?
…Duh.
A question sheathed in rhetoric; absolutely. A black hole does not give back. Wake UP, m Maple – Ali – Oliver – whatever you are today.mWake up, you ****** And look here.
You ruthied(sp?) me last Halloween, took my body as your own, enabled a cycle I’ll no longer accept. The girl who cried rape…an alias to forever haunt me.
No one believed me then. Why would they now?
This final hurrah; a Halloween blackout. Wherein, you personified my worst nightmare. A cruel and unusual punishment – at best. And then.
You slithered and slinked away; no apologies – no goodbye for me. You’d taken all of me. Just like they said. All my value – dismembered and pocketed. Off you went…as predicted. Onto the next…life on the move.
You etched your gimmick; smuggling trust; squirreling intuition - these morals I'd entombed - you burrowed away. Promising Eden, you offered a map; directing me as I sailed the route. The garden, however, was not what I found. My catafalque(coffin) negated expectations you set; a utopia of dazzling, abundant nature. For, you'd devised a mousetrap; and I'd glissaded willingly inside…
For the very last time, gaze entwined. Blue on brown.
SNAP.
Jan 23, 2016
Jan 23, 2016 at 7:48 AM UTC