"expressway" poems
Remember
The last time We were
in Dallas together
That place where We met
We loved and We lived
and where We were
so very alive in Our time
There in the beautiful city
Resplendent and Refined
Where we spent Our moments
in love in life
and the quiet vibrant
Love of Life
Remember
That last time
We went back home
to Dallas
On that day we awoke
in the early morning
When I asked if you
were ready to leave
You stepped gracefully
to embrace me
You said We had time
Do you think We might...
please
You knowing surely
without a doubt
you never needed
to plead
We made love
like We knew
that We meant it
We made love
that isn't made fast
We made love
in the joys
of pleasing each other
A love that would always
however still last
We soon then
were on our way
on a beautiful bright
late Fall day
To see someone
back home
You there then
golden and glorious
Happy and smiling
Sipping on a Sunkist
citrus soda
We put the car on cruise
and We sailed away
Slipping quickly from
the rustic western country
To merge swiftly
into the flow of
the magnificent city
Toward the inbound
expressway
Remember the majestic
towering skyscrapers
as we made the loop
around downtown
The red flying Pegasus
still flying on
as the emblem
of Our hometown
Reunion Tower
and the magic of light
The Top of the Dome Club
at the top of the world
Such wonderful times
at the top of Our life
Remember Our date there
when We were yet still young
that lasted the afternoon
Throughout the evening and
all that beautiful night long
For You then my Lady
A perfect Chardonnay wine
For me Johnny Walker
on the rocks
All to perfectly bind
the heart and mind
To a wondrous moment
Overswept yet fixed in time
You by my side as
I always had hoped
Like that very last time
We were in Dallas
together back home
We made our stop
to meet with a doctor friend
He knew what I could never
believe and what I never
wanted to have had
to comprehend
You were gone by measures
You were gone by degree
You were going
and near hopelessly
gone unto me
Yet I still hoped
and believed
The last time
We went back home
to Dallas together again
But still on the way back
from Our bright shining city
to what would become
the darkest of desolations
You still were happy
or so it seemed
You were bright and beautiful
like in a perfect dream
We stopped at a restaurant
I ate a lot...but You did not
You stepped away for a minute
and then I met you at the car
When We got back
to that place
where together
We last lived
We embraced and
You said again...
please
Surely You never
would have ever
needed to plead
We first lay there
together a moment
to recover Our strength
Entwined together
You and me
Then We there
were immersed within
that precious moment
When all of beautiful
intimate art is
expressed in life
And all of love
becomes perfectly
tragic art
There is where
I felt the trickle
of Your tears
as they fell down
onto my chest
And then there
upon my heart
After that last time
We were back
home in Dallas
together.
Remember Dallas.
We always
will have Dallas.
-R.
7/17/17
-LA
-4MAR
Aug 10, 2017
Aug 10, 2017 at 3:57 PM UTC
tall green trash bins
stand sentinel - each side -
for this cavalcade of one
branches wave, leaves applaud
the stout school crossing guard
flags me by
keepers at the drive-through gate
nod in recognition -
a goblet of dark roast
handed over in salute
a stop light that's never green
is evergreen
until this parade passes
exiting to the expressway
Aug 20, 2010
Aug 20, 2010 at 12:40 PM UTC
The news never stops, but sometimes it breaks
strange, like when the cops tell us,
Man throws dog at sister.
It didn't fly far, but across town,
the Police did finally catch another stray dog
on the Eisenhower Expressway.
I hear it's driving a '98 Toyota Corolla,
which has nothing to do with
the 3 critically injured
when their vehicle hits a pole
on the Kennedy Expressway.
They could be spooked by the report
that a Suburban girl, 11, threatened
to shoot up her school bus.
She's been told pink bullets
are the latest preteen fad,
and to prove her absurd point,
there's more bad news of
2 children injured in a Far South Side shooting.
Add their names to the piled-up statistics
and the multiple PR reasons
an often divided
State Legislature and Mayor Daley will try again
to crack down on gun violence.
This equation's always out of balance.
Apr 29, 2010
Apr 29, 2010 at 7:17 PM UTC
He fell into his 20 somethings
with less grace than a stage dive
and about as much planning
I drove 100 miles per hour
down the expressway
just to make it to his bed,
before he got inside his own head
several times a week for
seven years straight
But something about this
time looked unsalvagable
as he came flailing,
wrecklessly
over head
I guess I found the courage
to step away
and let gravity
pull his weight
Well,
I sat on his front porch
this morning with a coffee between
my hands and my legs crossed,
hoping desperately
he wouldn't ask me
if he was going to be okay
cause I know that in some ways
he needs me to believe in him
but I was always bad at pretending
when my mom drug me to church
at age six
and not a whole lot
has changed since then
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 3:15 PM UTC
By Arcassin B & wolfspirit & pea
WSQF: placing my heart on a platter
only for you
letting you see the insides, like that
clear plastic anatomy figure
from science class at university
downtown from uptown ..crosstown
this is the expressway to you
finding you wherever you may be waiting
with that smile, the one etched into my soul
nothing is wasted when it is tasted
we are all eternal in our guilty indulgences
but in living,
there is no shame
no one is to blame
exchanging those knowing smiles
our mission here.....is clear
AB: I'll put my name in a book for you,
Making my way down town,
Crossing esponola bridge,
Just to see that insecure smile,
But all the while,
I'm futile,
Of all the imaginations that you carried
When you were a child,
Don't let that smile go to waste,
Don't let that smile go,
As it came,
I use to have and felt shame,
So please don't let that smile goto waste.
SP: The memory of you never
goes to waste around here
I miss your kisses the most
eerie sweet ,clad moist tongue
I taste the mist off your lips
I miss your mystic touch and
pleasant need of desire...
your heart restless in the
unspoken comfort of being
alive, your words echo
deep in my mind...like
great audacious tolling bells.
Love is forever...and so are you
in my heart.
Oct 25, 2015
Oct 25, 2015 at 12:44 AM UTC
i'm anxious for an early grave
an expressway to the pearly gates
or a laundry chute to the furnace flames
any burning faith that i can claim-
like yearning for a puppet string,
i'm addicted to the dangling-
salivating for that suspension
heaven help me make these hard decisions
because the aimlessness of atheism
is weighing down my weakened limbs
as it beats me til i'm bedridden
or confines me to the casket's grip.
Mar 12, 2010
Mar 12, 2010 at 4:31 AM UTC
flying into Chi-town
Altoids of various sizes
litter the scenery.
An artfully constructed
playset thrown off
by the skilled placement
of refreshing breath mints.
Maybe they’re off brand,
or perhaps ecstasy,
though I don’t see any
smiley faces or hearts.
I like to look for high school
tracks as we descend.
Forget the football fields,
they’re far less interesting.
Mostly black, though
sometimes gravel, dirt
or red and even
purple once,
though not in Chi-town.
The homestretch extending beyond
each curve;
no hurdles in sight
much less a sand pit.
A mile inland
there is some sort of water.
The body scattered
and split like some
kind of man-made accident.
shallow sand banks
invisible from the ground look
like dead whales.
floating (submersed) there
like lifeless, sandy corpses.
Maybe it’s because of my “Free ***** spree,
but I see whales.
I’ve never been to Chicago,
only in and out of the airport
and catching glimpses of what I
can see through the windows
of Midway.
My good friend has flown with
me once, but we parted at the
big city.
Have you ever wondered why
cities are built like mountains?
the tallest buildings in the
center with everything
else leading up to it?
Kinda like that Verizon commercial
with the magnet and lead…
Maybe I’ll Google it
to find an answer.
There’s a private airport a
little closer.
(Too good for Southwest to land
there). Private jets and runways
too classy to have a White
Castle across the expressway
from it.
They have cornfields.
Even closer now.
The houses larger with matching
sheds and identical roves.
Almost all have pools, makes
sense for a windy city like
Chi-town.
Some are covered and
nasty for the impending
winter. Playsets and driveways,
minimal trees.
I wonder if the children
ever get scared when
the shadow of a 700 series
darkens their windows and slides.
If they look up and feel warmth
in their Children’s Place pants,
throwing their ice cream to the
wind and catapulting into
the comfort of their father’s
arms and then
write about it 13 years
later after they get off that plane.
“Thank you for flying with us
today, please come back and
see us soon.”
A desperate cry for profit
Dec 14, 2010
Dec 14, 2010 at 5:45 AM UTC
I have traveled this road
So many times, toward
The remoteness and
Nearness of our love.
In rhythm and rhyme
Our hearts and minds repose
Their faith, conquering
A thousand cycles of tires,
Which, no matter how many
Times they and this fate bring
Me closer and farther from you,
This road, will remain barely
As a road, because you are
The path...
Oct 10, 2013
Oct 10, 2013 at 10:57 PM UTC
My children, as you leave home little by little--
first grade school, then college,
your own apartment, perhaps marriage--,
I hope you'll think fondly of these walls which housed you,
the slanted yellow-pine ceiling you lived under,
the warmth you felt there--
thinking of them not as a barrier
which kept you from being what you needed to
but as a harbor
from which you sallied forth to meet the ever-widening world,
to which you retreated in too-strong wind.
Yes, there are bad people in the world,
but the random person driving on the expressway has a mother who loves him
and most--by far the most--
want nothing more --like you-- than peace and happiness.
Though I've pondered deeply the universe's mysteries,
I fear I lack religion.
And if I've bequeathed unto you this unbelief,
placed on your shoulders this terrible burden,
I apologize.
It is, perhaps, my greatest failing.
(Are the tools I've given you really strong enough to fight infinity? Strong enough to deal with our ultimate aloneness?)
May you be rich and smart but, above all, kind--
known as someone who treats others fairly.
May you find the sort of love
your mother and I have found.
Have children -- lots of them!
Return often! not out of filial duty
but rather curiosity:
"And what might those old codgers be up to now?"
Jun 30, 2018
Jun 30, 2018 at 2:09 PM UTC
The dank speed on the expressway
never felt so lonely
The moving cars and their taillights
never felt so bright
If only my Zephyr were here, we'd enjoy the gushing sound
of the chatter and the unruly sound of the bus engine
I do, I really do miss you
not in the way I miss us way
not in the way I miss your old self
just in an I miss you way.
Oh Zephyr,
I am afraid of the happenings.
I am afraid of the sun when it's time to rise.
I am afraid of searching to what I am sure of
look, Zephyr. It is not always the easiest way out.
It never was for you to be a person full of sorrow.
I never saw that in you, but please.
Please do know I too am just as scarred as you, but I never saw a mismatch in what I do.
I do know. You're one worth-while-time of happiness
It may be hard for you to admit,
as I am afraid to say,
but yeah. I do.
Endearment for you my dear Zephyr.
Nov 16, 2015
Nov 16, 2015 at 12:39 PM UTC
It was a Tuesday
I tripped in full stride
I blame the house which was fragrant with a stale caffeinated aroma
It seemed rational at the time going for a walk with bare feet on hot coals
I’ve done more
or less
For some perverse introspective frivolousness
I took the road less traveled
which looking back was more like a rutted, run-down underground expressway
I kicked at beer cans
Tripped on broken guitar strings
Blotted melancholy on crumpled cocktail napkins where now meaningless prose once had meaning
the ******* led my way
scattered carelessly
discarded thoughtlessly
left to clean up the mess
I walked past doors left open absentmindedly
deliberately pushing them closed
Passed windows broken where shards of glass still held a dim shine
Letting my bloodied fingertips trace a path along the wall as I loitered
A few times I sat
mulling over the graffiti left behind
everyone leaves their mark
picking at loose paint with my fingernail at what I once thought important
now not even a decent curiosity
just reminders of wannabe artists whose color faded when they explored the same terrain
I walked farther deeper
into the all too Familiar
down an almost unrecognizable hallway I never dared to venture
one I didn't even know existed
That’s when my fingertips ran into
red
velvet
wet
where my feet settled in fresh paint
Sinking into the red I felt a slow
steady drip from above splash on my lips
flushed with a burning need to suckle at the source
Drip
Drip
Drip
I smiled and thought
*Finally...
an artist with some ******* talent!*
Dec 31, 2014
Dec 31, 2014 at 5:52 PM UTC
They told me to write a poem,
Themed “The City Limits”,
I didn’t know what to write,
We didn’t know what to write!
My mind went blank,blank,blank.
With my favourite reddish-brown pencil trapped in my fingers
I slowly, steadily
Using a long ruler,
Drew a rectangle
I drew squares in that rectangle
It looked like a building
I drew more of them, even taller; yes taller ones that towered above the others completely
They peaked at the sky, bathed in an orange hue,
My mind was filled with an image,
Where trees swayed to the breeze
Swoosh! Woosh!
And cars moved bumper to bumper, caught up in the expressway.
Peep! Peep!
Bonk! Bonk!
A lively city, this little red dot is, But the construction works; Enough! O what a pain!
But, there was one thing,
Something was wrong with my city
The people had buttons for eyes!
Their friendly smiles turned into evil glares
The orange sky turned into silvery-grey buttons
Someone was singing, O, yes to me
Orange, red or blue
Whatever you choose
The buttons are such a beauty!
They threatened me
Oh, yes we didEvil Laugh
To sow buttons into my eyes!
I had to escape
From this dreadful nightmare
But you just couldn't wake up
Running away was forbidden!
Ring, Ring, Ring!
Holy Cheese!
Mum was shaking me awake
Finally it's over.
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 10:12 PM UTC
All cars flow down the same mainstream of the expressway,
And meet for a while, traveling the same road.
They ride side by side touching for a brief span of time, being under one fellowship.
Then the expressway divides and fellow travelers go their own ways, never having met but yet together.
They divide never to see each other again or meet and yet they have touched each others' lives.
And also they were once under one divine hand with the same pre-determined destination.
Now they part and go different ways, yet they are still protected by one hand.
Nov 1, 2014
Nov 1, 2014 at 9:28 PM UTC
I prefer to drive home after drinking too much at 2 AM.
It's safer.
I'm convinced that all the cops are out after bars' happy hours.
I only know about that from my favorite bar, which is 9 to 11.
After 11, I think they prowl until one.
Come two, they are exhausted and bored.
But not like us.
The streets are like a blank canvas and we have all the paint,
And we are eager to make a mess of its purity.
I steer the wheel with my knee as I stretch my arms wide,
While one ends up hugging the headrest of your seat,
You look at me and say, "Pay attention to the road."
You mustn't know.
You mustn't know what it feels like to look at you
When you look at me
The way you do.
You mustn't.
You can't even begin to imagine all the things I see,
But I direct my gaze through my drunken haze to the expressway,
With the lights passing by us like previews before a movie,
And we try to comment on all of them,
Which ones we choose to see and not see,
But we're too excited about the feature presentation,
Because it's the first night that it feels like summer,
And I remember why I can't keep my mind off of you through all the seasons;
You have always been my summer scent,
The carefree afternoon, the elongated dusk, the crickets before bed,
The one that could keep me from feeling the cold that runs through my bones
And somehow make me whole and warm.
And I stop the car
And take you all in
And wait
For your eyes
To meet mine
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 2:37 PM UTC
Last night, Lisa, Peter, Leeza and I were in her father’s 50th floor study watching New York City. It’s a corner room with glass walls from floor to ceiling. He likes to watch the city himself and has a small, 5 seat sectional couch facing the view.
The left wall window looks across Hell’s Kitchen to exactly where Sully Sullenberger crash landed flight 1549 in the Hudson river (it was 3:31 pm and no one was home). The right window overlooks Central Park and Upper Manhattan. Lincoln Center, almost dead center of the corner, looks like part of a toy train-set.
The view is a wheeling, ever changing and mesmerizing panorama. Well lit ships, barges and boats move glacially against the ink black Hudson. Jets in expressway-like holding patterns (Newark Liberty, and Teterboro airports left window - LaGuardia, right window) blink, like waving angels, helicopters buzz below like insects and the traffic, far, far below, forms a living chain of red and white lights which can erupt with nugatory hues of police blue at any moment.
While we watch, we’re playing a game of “Would you rather.” It’s a game of situational trade-offs, like “Would you rather listen to the same 10 songs forever or have to watch the same 5 movies forever? Of course, most people say the movies - because they last longer and there would be fewer repeats.
We take turns asking these critical questions - pausing, occasionally, to point out things below.
“Would you rather be in a crowded elevator with a bunch of noisy high school students or pinned in with a bunch of judgemental, middle aged men? The girls chose the students, even though high schoolers can be mean. Peter chose to be with the men.
“Would you rather find your true love or a suitcase with 5 million dollars?” We all chose love.
“Would you rather hike or camp?” Both were unpopular if they involved going to the bathroom outside - which creeps the girls out.
“Would you rather give up your computers or your pets (forever)?” THAT was a stressful one.
Nov 20, 2022
Nov 20, 2022 at 11:18 AM UTC
The ticking of the clock
One that's unheard of
Blares loudly in my head.
The hands of the minute
Seem to be running
Such that minutes become seconds
And time as a concept
Becomes nothing.
I feel as though I'm flying
On an expressway through time
Waiting for "past time"
To catch up with me.
(c.c)
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 10:43 PM UTC
I met a busboy and once he really ***** twill
of this winding expressway
with a bourgeois vex in this supper quest
why a Turk described them admirably
a shrew whirled in a shrill of the night
still could skirt his papa's pants
in a romance of tennis
to further kind with a match
only with a foul drama again
and put it in court
Aug 30, 2019
Aug 30, 2019 at 10:13 AM UTC
The many highways and varied roads we travel each day
are lined with much danger and pent up rage.
A sense of anger that is a constant potential time bomb
just waiting to go off.
Many paths are taken at every moment of our lives.
Some roads are quiet, surrounded by solitary vegetation,
some roads are long drawn and monotonous, coaxing you
to fall asleep at the wheel.
Still, others are surrounded by dread and danger on
either side...here, safety is a seldom seen luxury.
TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK...
LISTEN TO THE EERIE BEATING
OF THE CLOCK!
You have only to watch your daily news to witness
countless examples of a festering that every day,
in different ways, just boils over to a culminating
point where both victim and victimizer take a
proverbial bullet.
Children killing children, mama's selling themselves
to feed one or more 'juniors', daddy...where is
daddy in most cases?
TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK...
LISTEN TO THE EERIE BEATING
OF THE CLOCK!
These pathways and roads on life's highways are
littered with our minute to minute decisions and
bring equal consequence at every turn.
Many times the challenge becomes exiting any
number of one way streets where hate and
collective fury reside, and finding passage to the
expressway leading to boulevards of understanding,
compassion and an enlightened view of our
fellow commuters.
TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK...
LISTEN TO THAT EERIE BEATING
OF THE CLOCK!
Soon...very soon...this world; our world, the only
one we've got...will implode then explode then ball
itself up into a fetal position, and finally drink its
own bitter, fallout tainted tears as each last
survivor...remembers...what once was...
TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK...
LISTEN TO THAT EERIE BEATING
OF THE CLOCK!
I'm afraid...YOUR TIME IS UP!!!
-by Mercurychyld
Copyrights
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 6:20 PM UTC
The oxygen has run out of the town.
All the dogs have left the pound.
And all I see is black.
The patients have been healed.
The dogs have been adopted.
And all I see is black.
I turned on the radio.
Black radiated from the speakers.
That's all I hear and see and I don't acknowledge it.
Say, why don't you hop on the expressway of the mind?
Just take the exit numbered infinity.
Your soul will be lifted again.
Nothing more is sacred at all.
There's nothing more do to than save face.
After acting for so long, you believe that something's real.
We know that morality is just a fantasy.
We know that displeasure and misery is still a sensation, so we pretend that morality exists.
We pretend, safe in the knowledge that we never wanted morality to be a fairytale.
Black won't recede,
It's ascended to a self-declared deity.
So we swim away from the evening tide.
Thank goodness that everything has a timer , so nothing is permanent.
Jul 13, 2018
Jul 13, 2018 at 5:06 PM UTC
More often than not I find myself looking through space like there's something there for me to reach for
But you see ghosts are just the dead trying to fit their way back into our lives when they no longer can
And whispers only travel so far before they become hush hums in the winds you blow
I'd give anything to be able to share it with you and have you see past what you let yourself believe
But dandelions fly too far sometimes and they don't really ever find their way back even on the expressway
I only really wear the bracelets I bought to hide the secret lines I write at 3am on the bathroom floor
And you don't watch or look out for the silent flinches when someone grabs my forearm
Neither do you question the tearstains on my pillow when you come over never
So when I'm reaching into the vast amount of nothingness for something to keep me from breaking
I hardly ever come across anything that will help because you can hardly mend broken things that are still cracking at the edges and crumbling into dust
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 6:57 AM UTC
You'll find your God(s) lying in ***** soaked camouflage pants and a black wool sweater next to his or her grocery cart . On the corner of a busy downtown intersection waving at the cars ! Their panhandling at the liquor store for loose change .. Standing at the off ramp of the expressway holding a sign that says " Need Food ! " They're the people talking to themselves as you try your best to look away ! Maybe inside a cardboard mansion in the shadow of the state capitol building ..Freely associating with their disciples on a city park bench . Waiting any day to be crucified by a disinterested government !
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 2:26 PM UTC
On the dark expressway
I am once again found and reborn
Who was once was in an attic
Trying to enjoy
The space beneath the floor
Oh how little joy
Can be revived by such a walk
With the woman in black
And the sweat dripping
On my face
Is never a disgust to her.
How im blinded by the city lights
How the cars passing through
Are a glaring vision
How the red beams from the taillights
Feels like a dream,
Yet i am here
You're here
Everything feels like gravity
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 12:16 PM UTC
Doctor my eyes by Jackson Browne.
Mom and child reunion by Paul Simon,
Quiet violence by Arthur Lymon,
Heaven bust be missing an angel by
Tavares
Theme from A Summer Place by the
Percy Faith archestive
Island in the sun by The Sandpipers,
Love power by the Sandpipers,
The horse by Cliff Nobles & Co,
Only the strong survive by Jerry Butler
Moonlight feels right by Starbuck,
Expressway to your heart by the Soul Survivors,
Shotgun by Junior Walker
Afternoon delight by The Strand
Vocal Band
We live in Brooklyn Baby by Roy Ayers
And Dance with
Me by Orleans.
Jun 22, 2018
Jun 22, 2018 at 10:04 AM UTC