"crosswalks" poems
Pinto?
No, not the wild-spirited, color-splotched mare
with mane streaming like flames-thrown
behind in the wind
Taking desert inclines
with scuffing hooves on rock
catching her balance in mesquite
curbing?
The sage, dust
All
that nature throws in its pathway to knowledge
toward treachery of crosswalks?
“P-l-e-a-s-e don't slow down!
Stop signs--?
”No!
Just keep going!
Don't slow down now!”
“They'll hear us coming
3 blocks away!”
Pinto?
Clogged carburetor--?
No one much-mentioned
rear-end inferno reputation??
A mere twinge in my signature
Woman-without-a-clue
“Hey, it runs, right?
Gets where we're goin'?”
Kids duck in back seat
so as not to be seen
In the cloud of smoke
We make our approach
Hiss Spitter, Belch, Pop
and--
BANG!
--Like a gunshot
Kids take cover
on street, in backseat
duck down
so not to be noticed...
“Oh Ma!
MA!!!
Not right here!
Farther down!”
...so not to be seen
...by friends that matter...
in this ride
from hell!
Backfiring Beast--
“Friends”
skitter away
from what will emerge from the smoke and fumes
of high-risk-situation
Kids spill out through jammed door
to unexpected accolades
onto equality's curb
of laughter
Public school's
wake of exhaust and relief
I drive mercifully away
Start of another school day
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 1:11 PM UTC
after the crossroads
the wrong turns
and taken risks not worth taking
there came a time in my life
when nothing came next
no highways calling out for me
just painted rainbow crosswalks
for staying put
i stayed inside a lot
the more i hid
the dirtier the carpet got
it was cheap and poorly cut
to begin with, the dirt i was daring to become filth didn't help
the more i hated the cost of living
the dirtier the carpet got
the richer jeff bezos got
so stupid i thought
it was a daily thought
my own personal seventieth seven
antichrist and nothing
but crowds to fill his headquarters
hairless cat of a shepherd and his reusable sheep
i stayed inside a lot
so stupid i thought
the more i hid
the dirtier the carpet got
Jul 17, 2018
Jul 17, 2018 at 3:53 AM UTC
Blankets, pillows, a black dog, and a cell phone.
Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Gmail, and Instagram.
Shampoo, soap bar, toothbrush,
toothpaste, temperature, and time.
Shaving cream, razor, running water,
advertisements, sensitivity, precision, and cuts.
Burned tongue, empty stomach, loose tie,
missing shirt buttons, beating the clock,
wallet, briefcase, and car keys.
Ballpoint pens, scented trees, fast food wrappers,
loose change, lighters, citations, ***** clothes,
CDs, and napkins.
Red lights, pedestrians, homeless people,
newspapers, billboards, pets on leashes, sewer
grates, crosswalks, skyscrapers, and garbage.
Faxes, printers, memorandums, break room,
prestige, cubicles, customer service, paperweights,
filing cabinets, stocks, and corporate.
Wipers, streetlights, rain coats, dive bars,
and home.
Blankets, pillows, a black dog, and a cell phone.
May 4, 2014
May 4, 2014 at 1:43 PM UTC
Inside your little mouth, a crucifix and a hula hoop plant great capers on the short hash marks on your glossy pinkish lips. Like a boardgame I can't win all by myself or a song without a tune, like the melody that chases strangers, or any words that precede goodbye.
The future is coming quickly now, serfs lining up to set fire to their nostrils, take the cue ball and whet their mass wicks for the apostles. Anecdotal anomaly that J-walk over crosswalks whose life then becomes an apostrophe. Morbid fixture on the substrate, creatures limitlessly nodding. A grape-sized egg fills its own unit and erupts to shape the outlet. Your verb-legs may appear demonstratively while you crowd surf, we should play the music louder while we practice all our dance work.
Sunday morning we wake up stiffly, my jowl hurts from mouthing softwords, the nights' adventurous perversity of thwarting dinosaurs with Cobra Starship. Even the back room closet manager gave us enough bleach to see our eyelids, frothy nictitating flitters drop freshly severed lashes that inspire wishes and sultry playlists.
Consecrated mien market of company meals. Underneath the cable cars the dye blunders sores in my eyes. Said I had to go, said I had to die. Said I had an itch but I couldn't get in front of all of this and unwind. Between all of the bees and buttered flies he made it hard for us all to survive, or service this state of our lives. I recall schoolyards where children paid to their dimes for us to see the spaces in the middle of lines, the circles on the circles we liked, stuck in bubble baths with crayon all on their hands. For the price of staying alive I deliver a bribe to sway eyes from the crimes of street dwelling inner-city sinners with stomach contents' upsetted by the rough ********* of heavy petting. She eats red licorice rope with with my fingers rubbing on her tongue. A pedagogy I use to teach, but pretty much no longer have a use.
Dec 6, 2014
Dec 6, 2014 at 12:28 AM UTC
After dining at the finest of Maw and Paw restaurants
Frequented by men in trucks
Outside I slipped on the gravel drive
And as would be my luck
The LARGE cowboy belt I'm so proud of
Latched on and then got stuck
Now I'm off to see America
From the front grill of a Big Mac Truck
From the plains of Plano, Texas
To the hills of Hoboken Plantation, Tennessee
There's not to many places
That Big Mac Truck did not take me
To other motorists I was Mr. Friendly
With my arms flapping in the wind
They all would honk and wave and smile
As I smiled back with my bug filled grin
For weeks and weeks we went from coast to coast
Hollywood, California is where I made my mark
Someone happened to take my picture
Which made me an instant star
So I hooked my buckle to the front of a limo
As crowds started to recognize me
A Big Mac Truck would no longer do
When your a Big Time Celebrity
I was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
He interviewed me from a parking lot
The limo would not fit on the couch
Plus I can't get the buckle to unlock
Now when my limo pulls up to crosswalks
Pedestrians ask for my autograph
Before the light turns green and me and the bumper we leave
I tell a few jokes and we share a few laughs
As life's fortunes would have it
I can't believe my luck
The day I tripped on that gravel drive
And fell into the grill of that Big Mac Truck
Mar 30, 2013
Mar 30, 2013 at 7:11 AM UTC
her makeup
made a tiny mocha stain
on the inside lip
of my yellowed sink
as I drove home
and listened to the oldies
a man stumbled through crosswalks
under the old railroad
his shadow looked
noosed through the beams
the next day
I watched a squirrel eating
styrofoam like cotton candy
I wonder if we feel
how everything moves
around our heads
*molasses and lightning
the surf and the coast*
I don’t always feel drowned
I don’t always feel whole
Apr 23, 2013
Apr 23, 2013 at 7:52 PM UTC
You can acknowledge the emptiness at the core of your being
or go crazy when the world goes crazy.
The numbers of us overwhelm,
an impending tsunami,
my hopeful eulogy about our responsibilities to each other,
2 jobs 2 hobbies,
the biomass in the crosswalks,
fears that rend and own us,
the Muslim-Judeo-Christian condition.
Your soul is immortal,
it exists outside of politics and poker. Just kidding.
Forgotten, forgiven and foregone.
A man’s ego needs no encouragement.
“I’m gonna be huge when I’m dead,” John said
last time we spoke.
Life is fine!
tough
the reward for our colossal imperfections
a back and forth game
the rivers and selfies of an empire
daily low intensity warfare
Good
a gift
not a curse
new, so let go
a veil, thin if one doesn’t believe in mystery
like all things that are forever changing but always remain the same
thriving after five nights of steady rain
enjoying the passage of time
or will be good
but a dream
okey doke, short, a lazy-eyed tiger
Apr 12, 2022
Apr 12, 2022 at 7:27 AM UTC
I know a girl
who moves like
a waterfall.
She's all fluid
in a downward spiral.
She knows that gravity is a beautiful thing
when it leads to a breathtaking view.
I know a girl
who speaks like
poetry.
She can make prose
out of stop signs and crosswalks
And still,
Somehow every word out of her mouth is as fluid as a waterfall
I know a girl
who doesn't believe
she can make boys fall to their knees
Just by telling them
She loves them
Because they know they probably don't deserve it.
But they know once they've finally earned it
The view will be breathtaking.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
I remember when I was a child.
My parents would tell me tales.
Of men dealing with demons.
In the crossroads right out of town.
And I remember quietly.
I had walked down that path too.
Not for money, talent, or fame.
I wanted to know what happiness was like.
And I never knew if I got my wish.
It always felt like things went south.
From within the abandoned crosswalks.
I could feel only sad eyes staring me down.
I felt the whispers and warnings.
Every foggy afternoon.
When I'd wish for the man to supposedly appear.
Just for a simple request.
"I only want to be happy and loved."
It seemed to echo into the neverending winter.
But I waited anyway.
I had barely any warmth to spare.
But nothing came and so I left.
And I felt the pity trail behind my back.
As I walked down the path.
That I decided to stroll down.
And my life continued to go down hill.
I am no longer so young.
I have become accustomed to this world.
To all its cruel games.
I have been broken and shattered
Over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....I have forgetten.
I am tired.
So I came back to the crossroads.
No more warmth left in my body.
I did not come with a wish this time.
Only seeking a question.
"Why did you not grant my wish?"
And I waited again by the trails.
For anybody to appear now.
Anybody who could give me answers.
"What did I do wrong?"
The trees looked at me with misery.
The clouds gave me it's soft tears.
The mist hugged me as tightly as it could.
And from within the forest.
I could hear it's voice at last.
"You did nothing wrong."
I am shattering by the seams.
"I gave you what you asked for."
Then why am I so unhappy.
"Because happiness never lasts."
Am I always going to feel hopeless?
"No."
Then what am I meant to do?
"Nothing."
I don't understand.
"Because happiness will never mean anything without the struggle."
But I am shattered now, practically dust.
"But a phoenix is also reborn from it's ashes."
I no longer carry anymore warmth.
"But a fire can always be rekindled."
Is that all my life will be worth for?
"Life is always a struggle, it is survival."
But it is not what I asked for.
"No one chooses to have it willingly."
Am I meant to live on?
"Certainly you are."
Why? Why am I meant to be here.
"Because you want to."
What If I don't want to be here anymore.
"You have meaning you always will."
I don't understand.
"Your struggle and success to survive is enough to show for it."
And I could see the soot on my feet gather.
That was when the howling stopped.
I stood there still with no answers.
As the sun began to rise.
But I had a gut feeling I would not return to the crossroads again.
-Rain
Feb 25, 2022
Feb 25, 2022 at 9:28 PM UTC
Kissed his student.
Punched his friend.
Accused her lover.
What if China's navy asserts control where our navy also patrols?
Should we concede the South China Sea? Not on your life! Or maybe.
Lives may be lost but so what. There's so much biomass in the
crosswalks.
Lord have mercy on my soul
Which means bring my confusion into an expressible state before it's
too late.
Sal went to jail. I belong to the loved ones. Never may the anarchic
man's thoughts be my thoughts. Not one.
It could be cancer or just a cyst
That killed Frost's considerable speck
Instead of considering its considerable intelligence.
Although bottomless ancient night stretches
From your short life forward, remember
It also stretches backward without measure.
There are few straight lines in nature and only one alternative to
ageing, so **** it up!
Suppose everything's fine and you've wasted your time wearing
sackcloth over your soul?
Start now knowing joy.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 9:38 PM UTC
City limit space expands,
it's threaded through with veins--
grey-black dendritic strands
span
across this moldy brain
of a city.
Our rotting nights spray hits around
the places players play.
The impulses will whitewash all complaints
'til the glaring day.
I wanna spit-shine every storm drain,
stain the cracked sidewalks in white,
take this town to Sunday morning Mass,
though she was born for Friday nights.
We're gonna trickle past addresses
now,
Electroshock through habit streets
these crosswalks sneer with snide expression.
Mildewed thoughts we'll hardly think.
A conversation you're repressing
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow
Another weekend's blurred out
blank confession
melts off the tips of tongues,
I can taste it now.
Circulation space expands,
we're threaded through with veins--
this bio-asphalt plan
spans
all through this molded frame
of a body.
But rotten thoughts, like ships aground,
teach sailors how to pray
when impulses have buried all complaints
'neath the foaming spray.
I wanna shade out every bruise now,
paint the dumpsters all in gold.
Missoula, listen: You're a lady.
I don't give a **** what you've been told.
A moldy brain dreams slattern makeup
for a prizefight town each night
so let's take up every artist's brush,
paint shadows on these barroom eyes.
We're gonna flow right through these boule-
vards.
Electroshock through habit streets.
These dim lit yards and spoiled thoughts
are hyphens placed between each week.
A conversation you're repressing,
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow.
Our city's made-up face is running
off the tips of winter and I taste it now.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 1:19 PM UTC
I am young,
though I wish I were younger,
I would rewind time if I could,
back to a period where my temperament was stronger,
back to a time when my greatest concern was a Popsicle,
dripping on my hand as I lick it.
Youth is resilient,
we are born into ignorance,
where we might or might not remain,
given to bliss and innocence,
a greater inclination for love.
I long for a time filled with freedom,
freedom found within playground fences,
found within crosswalks and spineless volumes,
crayon on wall not pen on paper,
that's where real art is made.
I long for a time filled with big brothers and big sisters,
learning one step at a time,
no quantitative measures of success in life,
a time with unrealistic expectations,
not expectations unfulfilled.
I long for the time when I worshiped the ground my brother walked on,
infallible parents and clergymen,
where forgiveness goes without saying,
forgetting trespasses just as quickly as they come,
things change as we are carried away.
It's true that I still love,
but things are different now,
it'll never be the same,
my love is transfigured by dividing lines,
not open to the general populous,
dependent on what they do or say.
I wish that I could go back.
Nov 21, 2013
Nov 21, 2013 at 4:27 PM UTC
I'm growing old.
God don't plant in straight rows,
And weeds won't hear my temperate pleas.
But harvest comes, wailing like a freight train.
I thrive in the ghost town I built.
Regret crowds the crosswalks.
I wait for you.
Hurry.
Oct 2, 2014
Oct 2, 2014 at 8:17 AM UTC
OK. Today may be dull. It happens. Sure.
But tomorrow remains rife with possibilities.
Podcasts of Trump on on the value of modesty.
Street fights in several extinct languages.
Hillary wins at Detroit poetry slam.
Jihadists explode poodles in crosswalks.
Island countries wave & grin as they sink.
***** flicks found starring Merkel and Putin.
A sane, reasonable presidential election.
Angry cats with opposable thumbs rebel.
Men & women speaking & understanding each other.
Brock Turner announces *** change operation.
God announces: No More Mulligans!
Gender wars conclude. Everyone’s dead.
Debut of lost Bach Partita for Electric Kazoo.
New, hip-hop production of Treblinka: The Musical.
Shakespeare cloned. Buys poetry anthology. Dies.
End-up, instead of start-up, launches in Palo Alto.
Smart phones install apps with annoying ads on users.
Common sense becomes common again.
Victimless rhymes decriminalized.
This is America! Never two dull days.
Take Heart! Tomorrow, there be Wonders…
Aug 21, 2016
Aug 21, 2016 at 10:04 AM UTC
Inside your little mouth, a crucifix and a hula hoop plant great capers on the short hash marks on your glossy pinkish lips. Like a boardgame I can't win all by myself or a song without a tune, like the melody that chases strangers, or any words that precede goodbye.
The future is coming quickly now, serfs lining up to set fire to their nostrils, take the cue ball and whet their mass wicks for the apostles. Anecdotal anomaly that J-walk over crosswalks whose life then becomes an apostrophe. Morbid fixture on the substrate, creatures limitlessly nodding. A grape-sized egg fills its own unit and erupts to shape the outlet. Your verb-legs may appear demonstratively while you crowd surf, we should play the music louder while we practice all our dance work.
Sunday morning we wake up stiffly, my jowl hurts from mouthing softwords, the nights' adventurous perversity of thwarting dinosaurs with Cobra Starship. Even the back room closet manager gave us enough bleach to see our eyelids, frothy nictitating flitters drop freshly severed lashes that inspire wishes and sultry playlists.
Consecrated mien market of company meals. Underneath the cable cars the dye blunders sores in my eyes. Said I had to go, said I had to die. Said I had an itch but I couldn't get in front of all of this and unwind. Between all of the bees and buttered flies he made it hard for us all to survive, or service this state of our lives. I recall schoolyards where children paid to their dimes for us to see the spaces in the middle of lines, the circles on the circles we liked, stuck in bubble baths with crayon all on their hands. For the price of staying alive I deliver a bribe to sway eyes from the crimes of street dwelling inner-city sinners with stomach contents' upsetted by the rough ********* of heavy petting. She eats red licorice rope with
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 2:00 PM UTC
Rummaging noises that muscle into stark gravity
maiming
black & white finishes
into the hands of young artists
and everyday geezers
--drinking wine made for mad housewives.
We are seduced and strangled by this.
Spirits that knock seven times
on Hiroshima's soul that levitates through
planet Earth's oceans
--how can we not pull a ****
from our sweaty palms?
Gods, and doors, and chalk spittle
that gores the gorilla's back in the abyss
threatening hopeful snow--the lifting of applauding
violins. We are seduced and strangled by this.
Cultural amoeba--
the dimensional of minds
--made up of blank smoke
and film negatives.
And oh!
How the gasoline pours rainbows
on the pavement, fertilizing the crosswalks
where we danced...
seduced and strangled by this.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 12:04 AM UTC
your friends pity me
i see it in their eyes
but pretend it's
not there
you bring me along regardless
holding hands under the table
laughing alongside them
and we toast to your
oncoming sobriety
and i think they pitied you too
knowing that you and change
were fated mortal enemies
starting from conception.
god buried you in the dirt when he crafted your soul;
and the angels cursed you, turning the earth
to marbled heliotrope:
we met in that dark prison.
you whispered that everyone
had given you up. so i swore
to never leave. to try.
to fight for us. to
love.
you hold my hand for 46 seconds underneath
the sputtering pools of blonde light
after your narcotics anonymous
meeting.
and the angels pitied me as well,
turning their heads at stoplights
and crosswalks like i wasn't even
there.
as if i could forget or pretend
that i've never seen the
eyes underneath
our bed at
night.
Apr 20, 2022
Apr 20, 2022 at 3:53 AM UTC
(ɘɔnɒludmA)
I don't know how to talk to you
without feeling like neon red siren screaming ambulance
with bad brakes and a blown tire
hauling through a busy intersection
where the crosswalks are full of children
laughing.
And you're a pedestrian
soon to be in need of my stretcher.
Apr 8, 2012
Apr 8, 2012 at 12:57 AM UTC
There's blood on the chalkboards
and chalk on the crosswalks,
but the wrong one is being told
that it's clearly out of place;
The other, a wolf in a wooly coat
baring his teeth as he pockets his coin.
Sep 11, 2025
Sep 11, 2025 at 1:04 AM UTC
After dining at the finest of Maw and Paw restaurants
Frequented by men in trucks
Outside I slipped on the gravel drive
And as would be my luck
The LARGE cowboy belt I'm so proud of
Latched on and then got stuck
Now I'm off to see America
From the front grill of a Big Mac Truck
From the plains of Plano, Texas
To the hills of Hoboken Plantation, Tennessee
There's not to many places
That Big Mac Truck did not take me
To other motorists I was Mr. Friendly
With my arms flapping in the wind
They all would honk and wave and smile
As I smiled back with my bug filled grin
For weeks and weeks we went from coast to coast
Hollywood, California is where I made my mark
Someone happened to take my picture
Which made me an instant star
So I hooked my buckle to the front of a limo
As crowds started to recognize me
A Big Mac Truck would no longer do
When your a Big Time Celebrity
I was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
He interviewed me from a parking lot
The limo would not fit on the couch
Plus I can't get the buckle to unlock
Now when my limo pulls up to crosswalks
Pedestrians ask for my autograph
Before the light turns green and me and the bumper we leave
I tell a few jokes and we share a few laughs
As life's fortunes would have it
I can't believe my luck
The day I tripped on that gravel drive
And fell into the grill of that Big Mac Truck
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 9:02 AM UTC
I'm lost in the city
But I'm taking my time
The streets keep talking to me
They're asking how everyone can spend so much time looking down and straight ahead
When a whole world grows rapidly above them
Buildings grow into the stars
A new styled solar system
They dance among the clouds
Wisping fluffs of greys and whites
When I look, I know that I want to be where it all connects
I am gliding down hills
I am fumbling through crosswalks
I am slipping past street signs
because I can't keep my feet on the ground and my head from that new world
Mar 29, 2017
Mar 29, 2017 at 11:31 PM UTC
Don't cross the street until the light is green.
Hold hands at the crosswalks & parking lot.
Keep poison out of reach of children.
Don't cuss or swear.
Don't smoke or drink.
Don't speed above the speed limit.
Don't lend out cash.
Don't get conned.
Don't drink alcohol & drive.
Don't do drugs.
Don't sell *** for money.
Don't take bribes.
Don't get blackmailed.
Don't play with fire.
Don't use explosives or firearms.
Don't vandalize.
Don't be a ****** stripper, **** drug dealer, bank robber, killer, ****** carjacker, kidnapper, or shoplifter.
Wear your seat belt.
Check your motor oil & fluids.
Drive on a full tank of gas.
Clean your windshield.
Flush the toilet.
Brush your teeth & hair.
Never use electrical things near water.
Never lie.
Never hire an attorney for anything.
Never sign a stripper contract.
Don't dance naked for money.
Use mouthwash.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 1:02 AM UTC
The answer is nothing uplifting.
I’ve lived
better and absolute moments. Promised, with a demeanor of stagnation.
Better or polite moments within the stained glass, all for
that best end order.
I’ve attended.
Listened to the kind of Man who throws rocks with gossamer thread
and religious meaning.
I was here, Mom.
See?
Then summer brought something of meaning to movement. Attendance?
He sent un-movement to all of us. He can’t bear movement at all.
God, Your gurney has this man scarred. Mine was all for bits of someone else?
Or trading not-a-little darkening for something constant?
Before, soaked in ‘nice’, I blocked it. Fill us of this cup.
Blood yellow hold. Epic. Lyric.
It soaked in perfect, the clots forming.
Father, that best rest is never.
Father, but here You guard us?
Father, in your confession, fault.
In the end I chose opposition,
more like exsanguination.
Gone are the means to emulate. On a vetted day,
the err of all my sins shot me this red herring body.
So, let me go to assimilate never.
I was shut, locked in. But as the sore closet gains some more light,
now, with skinned knees
a brisk passing. Something for the retreat:
“Forgivers” or crosswalks?
Yes! – of course I choose crosswalks.
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 2:21 PM UTC