"detours" poems
How can we attain the perspective of the introspective
When detectives aren't respected
By crowds drawn by clowns
Made vicious by the wishes
Of Hades with rabies
In order for humanity to progress
We must all consider our place in society
Emotional disclosure accelerates our human race
Until externalizations halt our momentum
We begin to drift
Discourse drifts toward absurdity
Absurdity drifts toward reality
Reality drifts toward Hell
And accepting reality
Means accepting the bullet's laughter
while it drifts through the innocent
Then we must accept where our souls have drifted
So our minds drift into fantasy
We wrap our abandon ties around our neck
And go to work
We live in a society
Where not giving a **** about what others think
Is actually encouraged
Yes, exchanging ideas can hurt
That's whiplash as we stop drifting and jolt in each other's direction
But communication
Takes detours to dead ends
As honesty and compassion
Elude us
In a self-perpetuating cycle
When education's only purpose
Is learning how to ****** each other
Before we know too much
Our species drifts toward extinction
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 5:51 AM UTC
I can either spend my life fighting every single thing that doesn’t go my way, or calm down and believe that life’s challenges can be overcome and happiness can be attained.
My enormous odds, struggles, and difficulties are opportunities for me to gain wisdom and grow tolerance and resilience.
Dead-ends,
detours,
u-turns,
even mishaps,
they’re going to work to my advantage.
I believe that I’m already on the path to freedom from pain and confusion.
I believe that people can replace hatred with love, anger with patience and acceptance, spite with generosity and compassion, and jealousy with kindness.
I must walk the path to save myself.
Jul 27, 2019
Jul 27, 2019 at 10:07 PM UTC
Stay up late and write
I'm the freedom writer
Everyday it gets easy to say
Everything you wish you could
You think it's coldhearted
but needed to be said
I keep you away out of my head
I don't get close that's my only choice
Writing has become my voice
I show respect treated like a reject
Went my way because of detours
Crossing paths another roadblock
This time not giving up my way
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 4:08 AM UTC
I am aboard a bus that is driven by someone i don't know. He never takes His eyes off the road but yet He knows everything that I and everyone else are doing. Though i have never seen His face or met Him, I trust that He will take me safely to where i want to go. However the bus may never go the way i want it to. After all He is the driver, not me, and it might be necessary to take detours. On the bus are not only me and Him, but my loved ones as well. Everyone on the bus sits in different seats to talk with different people and is in separate groups at some time. However no matter what we are still on this bus and therefore together. Sadly though, some of my loved ones may have to get off at their stop. He will have to stop the bus and my loved one will say good bye to everyone and then slowly walk out the door. From time to time the driver will also stop to pick up people as well, these people are usually people i have never seen before, though other times they are the same loved ones that got off before. My bus takes a long, long time to reach where i want to go and along the way the people on the bus change quite a lot. Their personalities can change sometimes and the people will always switch. New people coming on, old friends leaving, however there are always 2 or 3 people that will stay on the bus as long as they can. When I look out the front window, I can only see a blur of lights and the rest is darkness. I don’t know where I am going and I’m surprised that the driver knows where I’m headed in all this darkness, but I do trust Him. Then I look through the back window to see all the places this bus has been. This window is clearer then the front one, but there is nothing clear outside. All I see is a large mass of people and events mashed together in a way that doesn’t make sense. It’s only on certain days when I look closely that I can piece together what is happening. Sometimes I see people that I’ve known, doing things that they had done before. However that’s not the odd part. Occasionally I see myself outside the back window. I don’t understand how or why, but outside the back window I am with people I have known or even with someone that is on the bus currently. Still, I can’t question much, I can only stay focused on what’s going on in the bus because the back window is where the bus has been and the bus never goes back. In my long bus ride I will eventually reach my stop as well. However in my time on the bus I have noticed that it’s missing a few parts. There are no cameras, no emergency exit signs, or emergency exits at all. Furthermore I have also heard that our bus doesn’t have a number, rather it has a name, life.
Oct 3, 2010
Oct 3, 2010 at 12:56 PM UTC
Everything was always fine when I was driving
below the speed limit, in control, safe.
you asked to take the wheel
without waiting for an answer,
accelerated.
not yielding, speeding on sharp turns
winding down the narrow path
caution lights and stop signs
wouldn't slow your pace.
you made illegal "U" turns
and took road detours, That I was very much against
you scratched, the paint.
hit the curb, and bit the steering wheel...
there had never been any construction
on my road... until now.
there was a traffic jam
and you finally saw the redlight
but you were already finished
you turned the engine off
we sat in silence.
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
In the long journey out of the self,
There are many detours, washed-out interrupted raw places
Where the shale slides dangerously
And the back wheels hang almost over the edge
At the sudden veering, the moment of turning.
Better to hug close, wary of rubble and falling stones.
The arroyo cracking the road, the wind-bitten buttes, the canyons,
Creeks swollen in midsummer from the flash-flood roaring into the narrow valley.
Reeds beaten flat by wind and rain,
Grey from the long winter, burnt at the base in late summer.
-- Or the path narrowing,
Winding upward toward the stream with its sharp stones,
The upland of alder and birchtrees,
Through the swamp alive with quicksand,
The way blocked at last by a fallen fir-tree,
The thickets darkening,
The ravines ugly.
2.6k
she wanted to find something that made her passion hang
like a human from a tree somewhere in the late thirties
a silent hand pressed against her sponge mind
making her leak her tongue all over the ill surface
years have passed like a seamless tomb
with eyes that scream please, hold me here for more than just two minutes
I am bored with the 1 hour love meetings and the detours
that lead me to the lions cage
the forbidden conversations and the numbed movements
stone tongues of gargoyles limping on the edge of
Gothic cathedrals in Prague
an animal somewhere in the wild dies slowly
a snake gives its venom to prey
and then you stood timid at the bottom of the mountain
as I struggled to make my way down
I thought of how my mother would be proud
to see me in a wedding dress, letting go of the only daughter she was able to drench out
of her body
surrender I thought never come in the form of bliss
till I realized I would hold out against all odds with no mercy
I'm not going anywhere
I stand right here in the corner
with my poetry spiraling down my thighs
in hopeless patterns
Feb 18, 2011
Feb 18, 2011 at 8:30 PM UTC
I asked him I said “don’t lie to me”
Give it a couple weeks but after that
then he be denying me,
take without supplying me
With the way we started
I guess this **** is irony, this **** is irony
If I told this would happen
Would you try to stop it?
Lay back in the mayback
Sit and wait
N Try to watch it
Boy I know we had our problems,
But you ain’t work to solve them
I been thru all this last year
I think that I’m revolvin
I’ve been thru this **** before
I took all of the detours
He told that he loves me
But it seems he always needs more
I can be the best for you
I’m so focused on you but you focused on what drug next for you
I know I have my issues but at least I try to fix it
You said that loves a game,
You say we swung and that we missed it
Switched up in an instant
We went from hugs and kisses
To tryna keep our distance
We barely speak our words
But I know you feel this verse
Ain’t denying it, I miss you
So I prey to god it hurts
I tried and tried and tried with you
I knew that I would ride for you
It really takes some honesty
And know I barely lied to you
Love was thrown around so let me be the last to save you...
I knew I should’ve expected this
Maybe you ain’t it no more
But I sure need to check for this
I tried everything so I think it’s time for an extra man, what extra man?
No this not a diss track,
But baby you ain’t it no more
So you can get your ***** back, get your ***** back
No regrets except for you,
Shoulda up and left on you
This is all yours so keep listen
And the rest for you
Love is gonna throw you out,
Told my friends I had no doubt, had no doubt yah yah had no doubt
Can’t believe that I defended you,
Broken hearts I’d mend for you
I used to send long paragraphs
But now this song in sendin you
It’s broken
I won’t bend for you
I won’t bend for you
Nah I won’t bend for you
You get on my nerves,
But it used to be my mind
I used to think you’re perfect
It’s a ****** waste of time
And I swear i keep searchin
But your type is all I find
All I find
Yah yah you’re all I find
Pretending you don’t know me gone be hard after this
Thought that I was done
Still goin hard after this
Baby we was up to bat
I guess we all gotta me,
We all gotta miss
But I should say thanks
I’m super focused now
You don’t want it?
That’s okay I won’t go hold you down
Used to spend my nights
We’d fall asleep on the call
Now I spend my nights I sleep quite at all
I hate you and I love you
And I wrote to express that
I hate this I hate us
It’s done now, never text back
I’ll send calls to voice mail
I won’t take my ex back
I hope you gonn find better
But baby it don’t get that
Baby It don’t get that
Dec 12, 2018
Dec 12, 2018 at 1:44 PM UTC
the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
poem
is a strange animal
with lines
monosyllabically
short
and then
perilously freakishly faulknerically
long
but not to worry
the trick is to ***** around
with the readers' heads a bit
let them wonder
what's going on
get them used to
obnoxious departures
sudden jolts
of expression
devious detours into
obscenity, indecency
these are the
tourette's moments
of a poet's creative life:
a move to keep those with the
attention span of an infant gnat
awake alive responsive
some may expect poetry
to take them down
safe bland routes:
a snowfall enhanced by red robins
perched on a rustic fence
a lake with canoeing lovers cooing
in a shimmering moment
heartfelt elegies
quaint quatrains
hip haikus
but can these images
really keep you entranced?
well, can they?
it isn't like i didn't warn you
or the horse you rode in on
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 12:21 PM UTC
this road is weathered
but where one road ends, another starts
crossroads are measured
by the sign posts of wrong turn hearts
caution lights
the stop signs
bridge out
bumps ahead
highways divided
it's gridlock
another dead end street
and there's no u-turns
that street was better
until it came time for us to merge
a do not enter
detours where two hearts converge
Oct 15, 2015
Oct 15, 2015 at 3:20 PM UTC
Life's like a road trip. When you're young, you're deciding where to go, what friends to take along and what sights you want to see. As you keep growing and learning; you change destinations, travelers and where you want to explore.
Once you're in your car, driving down the winding road, you start to pick up hitchhikers. Some only need the ride to the next town over, some stick around longer than expected and some leave too soon, each leaving different stories and memories.
With any road trip, sometimes you read the map wrong, or make a wrong turn and lose your way back to the main road. But don't panic, you'll get back to where you need to be, in due time.
While driving, you could decide to switch destinations because, that's not where you want to end up anymore. So, you pull up on the side of the road, ask for directions, maybe grab a bite to eat and head on to your new road.
With every road trip, it can be fun or hectic, longer than expected or ends too soon. You might stumble upon new discovers and detours along the way, stopping to soak up the beauty of the landscape.
Road trips are unique to the driver and the passengers. Once the road trip is done and you've reached your destination, you can always plan a new trip and start looking at different routes.
As long as you got good tunes, great travel buddies and gas; life's winding road will show you new horizons.
Nov 23, 2015
Nov 23, 2015 at 4:47 PM UTC
She thinks if she travels to foreign lands- even if
it is only by dating an ethnic man- that she can
scale the high walls of the borders between what she
was taught and who she hopes she is.
Having followed blindly her predestination programmed life
she can’t resist taking squinted peeks through the
tiny open slits of vision, hoping to find her true self.
“You are losing the faith!” her anxious mother warns
as though to do so would be an inherent flaw,
not a conscious choice.
But Mother’s own faith
has been slipping through her hands for the past
30 years, and only that promised salvation can save
her from the indiscretions that fill the non-rapturous void
left-behind by mister Christian-right-wing-man.
Taught well by mother, father, and god, that men
must be assessed in a purely logical fashion,
“Agree on finances and childrearing and you will
have happily ever.”
But she feels fake, and does not know how
to peel the plastic wrap off her personality.
You can see its bindings in the way her eyes implore you
and how she clasps her hands on her lap by rote.
She is the pink peg in the Hasbro Game of Life car
with guilt trip road blocks, detours and poorly folded
directional maps. Spinning the wheel in search of tour guides:
What should I read? What should I think?
But that only gives her new mind instructors.
Perhaps instead of foreign languages and foreign lands,
the verity lies in the realization that mother
probably feels fake too.
Aug 27, 2013
Aug 27, 2013 at 2:43 PM UTC
Life is a journey with hills and winding roads for me to travel as I bestow. There are paths that cross and dead-end streets. There are plenty of detours and obstacles to meet. One day I found myself on a lone highway when I became aware I had lost my way. I looked around to my concern and wondered when I had made a wrong turn. I looked for a sign to tell me my location and found myself reflecting upon my initial destination.
My passage through life has lost its intention. I wander across trails of no ambition. Wearily I struggle to fight dejection... as I span the horizon contemplating my direction. East, South, West, or North, I must decide in order to go forth. Feeling overwhelmed I fall to my knees and ask Goddess Diana to help me please.
I hear a voice inside me say, ”My dear child, you know your way. Follow your heart it will always lead to paths of splendor and the way to succeed. Remember the words of our Wiccan Rede, and the three fold law must you heed. Be of true heart and goodwill, and ye harm none do what ye will.”
I rise to my feet and look to the west remembering now my journeys quest. I watch an eagle fly towards the sea and knew all was well, So Mote It Be!
Jun 12, 2010
Jun 12, 2010 at 11:30 AM UTC
An event, an occurrence,
As if it all happened in a flicker.
Part of my past,
Part of my identity.
Learning to embody it,
Learning to sift through the pain.
Its effect coursing through every interaction,
Every conversation.
It held me in its grasp.
A prisoner to its will,
My emotions and feelings a puppet,
****** reactions a reflex.
As I take steps to unravel it,
Actions and thoughts become more understandable,
Relationships more translucent.
With consequences of a new sense of anger,
A surge of hate,
Flowing through my body.
I stare it in at in the eye,
Show it valor,
I am here to fight.
Detours may ensue,
But I will find my way back.
No longer will I be a pawn.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 11:33 PM UTC
He cups the bowl
With a pocket bible,
Pulls in a few more short gasps,
Trying to fill every last inch
Of the fleshy air sponge in his chest.
He rises up, as his lungs expand,
And puts down the pipe,
Caressing the tiny bible in his hands,
Absentmindedly.
He smiles...
A gray-white rose unfurls from his lips.
He slides the pipe across the table,
I turn it down...
I am only twelve.
"Suit yourself"
He says...
His voice like vaseline on silk...
A hair mussing, makeup smearing,
***** tearing voice.
I think,
*'Man, I would **** to have a voice like that.'*
"Me...I love the stuff. That's what its all about."
He says.
"That's what what's all about?"
I stammer.
He smiles,
And I shiver involuntarily,
As if waves of cool radiate from that smile.
This guy was a small town demigod,
Mind you.
The coolest car,
The blackest leather jacket.
He was the front man
For a local rock band,
And all the girls wrote his name in their notebooks,
With little hearts, and declarations of their love.
"Life, man, life.
If you like killing, or kissing,
Smoking or ********
Do it.
If you do you will stay loose.
You stay loose , you be cool.
You be cool, the world is gravy,
You dig?
Life is a custom Mustang
Made just for you.
You got to ride that some of a *****
Until you run out of gas.
So always take the roads
that lead to things you love,
And forget what the road signs say...
Make your own detours."
Four months later,
He was killed in a car wreck.
He was drinking wild turkey,
While getting road head.
They found a half ounce of grass
In his hip pocket.
The girl walked away with nothing worse
Than a broken arm.
They couldn't repair the red and pink glass shredded mess of his face...
His funeral was closed casket, and I didn't go.
The next day I spent the money I was saving
For a ten speed, on a used, Washburn acoustic guitar.
After all...I already had a set of wheels, that I was born with.
I hopped behind the wheel that day,
And since then, I have lived my life, my way.
I've had enough downs,
To prove my decision making skills are flawed,
But I followed my joy, and the things I love,
And I have no regrets...
Hell, I'm still alive,
And I ain't ran out of gas yet.
Aug 18, 2012
Aug 18, 2012 at 5:50 AM UTC
head filled with thoughts of knives and blood and tears and the finality of the silence that comes After.
short car rides feel that much longer one-handed and with your mind taking detours.
an empty passenger's seat, save for the bag of fresh pharmacy goods; bandages and pills and the sting of the chill winter air.
the suffocating feeling of being stuck inside all day, except this home is a body and relief is only found in quick, deep successions.
basement flooding with memories of Then and When and Red and we find ourselves to be lost in it all. drowning even.
wade through the murk and discover us in the darkest alcoves of yourself. we hide in the shadows where it's safest, drenched.
it's hard to stay present around these parts for very long without something (or someone) stirring inside begging us to forget the rest.
Sep 17, 2021
Sep 17, 2021 at 12:01 AM UTC
You mixed two packets of melancholia
into your coffee today,
and I had to bite my tongue to resist
to say, "I thought you liked it black."
I watched as you daintily taste-tested
it from your spoon and was delighted
upon seeing your grimace of
disapproval (you're adorable when mad).
I took note of how
your veins pulsed underneath
your deeply tanned skin
and I longed to be the blood that
traveled through your delicate body.
If only I could map out your cardiovascular
system and find all the detours and
shortcuts to your fragile heart,
memorize the freeway that
encircled your figure and learn
when to avoid rush hour or when
to take the fast lane.
I found myself fantasizing about
the day you were conceived and
how you beat out all the other
potential embryos - that maybe,
you were chosen out of the thousands
for the sole purpose of being with me.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 2:57 AM UTC
Detours be the best
Walk in silence of Everest
From a hill we look below
(Please don't go)
Cards we play
Your commentary, hurray!
I sit by, winning in a row
(Please don't go)
From friends to more
A smoke we score
So high, walk a road
(Please don't go)
Starry evening
Drawing cheesy dream
We sit together low
(Please don't go)
Write some more!
Random? sure!
Pages we tore
(Please don't go)
In a car, we ride
a little far, no fright
Tell funny stories yo
(Please don't go)
Surprise tight kiss
Rubbed my lower lips
Taking it slow
(Please don't go)
My heart beat you hear
Together we cheer
Let the liking flow
(Please don't go)
Random things be cool
Stay here my fool
So much to show
(Please don't go)
We pack our things
A new day to begin
Our reflection's glow
(Please don't go)
Wait a moment or two
Time flies for us few
My heart says no
You say "PLEASE DON'T GO."
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 4:56 PM UTC
It appears
I’m climbing a mountain,
my whole life a spur to the top.
At the moment it feels slow going
I’m afraid to slowdown and stop.
Looking back I see many detours,
mistaken when faith grew weak.
When the way seemed easier,
or so I thought, until the
trail led me back to seek,
the true path to the crown,
to the summit, where every
breath is now thin and frail.
Reaching the pinnacle of life’s
desire, to achieve flight, not to
plummet and thereby fail.
LadyP©2013
Feb 19, 2014
Feb 19, 2014 at 9:00 AM UTC
Emergent and forming I feel a storm is imploring that soon without any warning you beg to cross a line
Every time, nothing is sacred but sacramental complacence is marked as roles of the shameless
Mean to skip a line another time? Is this too rough and obtuse for a cutie like you to boost the power line?
Number 9, completion is power and stricken chords every hour proceed to timeline devour those daily entities
I do decree that opposition to me is free and withered beatings to meetings, detours and dealings
understanding demands of variable plans is held by the hand that feeds the depleted need
I see it from every angle, the tangle, the multishifted frame though it dangles, I can't be stuck in my own head when
I see the reflections of me in the treasure it jangles, brings into focus where my head fell to float in the
moments set to wrangle, pull it in, dwell upon the good and discard where it hampers new fangled notions like
truth effusions of love and devotion are swallowed up in the daily ocean of noise traffic, the more verbose,
Graphic dispatches matches blasted disasters dashed and rash past distractions amass magic attacks balanced
Secular motion entwined with metaphysical potions, divided what is your quotient? It doesn't add up in this
moment.
Interpersonal, intergalactic, universal assertions disturbed by verbage of outrance
Message mismanaged mischief mallaeble mayhem managed maganamously mallicous mannered when I
would proclaim them. Members materialized meriting masturbatory movements and monetized
malappropriation I have no patience nor pathos for indiscriminant egos demonstrating a tangent as canon and
paralyzing progressions toward psychic visions of heaven, eyes as the cosmos, and pressures upended.
I'll cope with associations disastrous and tainted, but keep in my visage all that scratches my lenses
I know far too much to be content with the situation, but far too little to shatter falsehood's intitiation
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 5:53 AM UTC
Rampant, bold uncertainty; at times it grows unchecked.
A fearful twinge too often spreads, surpassing all holds kept.
The bars affixed to life you've grasped, once linear and true
Now seem to veer so far from straight, away from all you knew.
What's to do when what you dreamed distorts and changes shape?
Nightmares born from vivid roads bisecting checkpoint's gate.
Stages sought now can't be reached, but detours linger there.
Sadly pointing, often though toward distant, lone despair.
Reluctantly, an awkward press results from giving in.
Ignorance, or lack of choice compels minds to begin.
Unwanted course, embarked upon, bears pressing weight, deforming.
Contorting souls which once had known the warmth of 'morrow's morning.
Expected glare from dawn's first light was ne'er a surprise.
Hated trials through distant lands create some darkened skies.
Reactions learned are useless then, accustomed as you are.
Anticipated outcomes are like flies within a jar.
Choked free of air, they surely die, but more then take their place.
It's these replacements, newly born, one tries to hold with grace.
Seeping through the cracks in hands that have no strength to hold.
Should you have used that jar at all? Why has this life grown cold?
Perhaps a high regard was due to that you took for granted.
Or maybe something just turned up, and shook the feet you'd planted.
Regardless, here you stand unsure, so lonesome is this fight.
Who's to know? What's now to come? Just tell me. Is this right?
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 6:59 AM UTC
We can get
accustomed
to being too
familiar
with the
familiar
paths in life
under the
mesmerizing
mood
of
moonlight
starlight
or
streetlight
and
wind-up
taking
unwitting
detours off
these
familiar
paths in the
light of day
and lose
our way.
Jul 15, 2025
Jul 15, 2025 at 9:54 AM UTC