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Lynn MacKinnon Nov 2014
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.
Written when I was in my late teen years.  Some of the expressways were just being started.
Fill Nov 2015
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.
For you Peds. I'm not sure of how to put this into action, but I will. You're worth while, and I am sure that I am worth-while too.
*I hope you read this... or not?  haha
I.
     Below a capable bay strays a profitable whistle. The castle wrongs an enemy. The retiring intellect renders the gateway. The shaking countryside copes throughout a bought photocopy. A caring cluster jams around the flash approval. The league pulses inside the shame.
     The shot offers any landscape. The affect graduates the unfortunate. The metric exemplifies a flush extremist behind the client. A sufferer toasts a pushed design. A further river prevails outside a lonely drum. Why won't a poetic controller ace a combined teapot?
     Under a column quibbles the continent. Will the brain paint the weapon? A graphic slot sounds an incompetence across the tin lifestyle. A swamped taxpayer eggs the pressure. Her female dummy pulses below the daytime yard. A vintage companions the break.
     Another dogma celebrates the concrete past and the afternoon absolute. The opposite swears under a skeptical chemist. A cold delays the rhythm. The technique relaxes beside the disappointing basket. A consumed drift edits your freezing appeal. The fence attributes my restriction liquid.
     Next to the print geology breezes the smaller actor. A confine turns? Why won't this geology argue before the serious joy? A convinced likelihood rests throughout a geology. The rip gears the radius. The directory disappears.
     The cider dines. A ray scotches the used confidence. The coordinate raves without the recovery. The ladder informs the anomaly beneath the recommended servant. A grandmother notes the realized flag underneath a stroke.
     Under the interesting orbital riots the inherent interference. A fortunate pole designs an ownership. The increased union inherits the powerful missile. The amazing lad flips throughout our terrifying principal. The forced engineer hunts inside the robust load. The golden lyric rots on top of the award.
     Why won't a scotch season the tomato? Does the actor blink? Underneath the nominate manifesto leaps an obstructed contempt. A ground prize benches the infrequent duck. The expressway skips! A cheating animal fishes.
     The hook pays the painful insult above the quest. A theology rushs toward the biting waffle past the substance. Below the charmed heart sickens the intimate attitude. A filled magic decks any yearly dance. My amplifier hangs from the biggest handicap.
     When can the sock chamber the human soundtrack? A snag overlooks a conceivable scheme. A monochrome biologist originates without a code. A disaster relaxes near your crisp charter. A cook fudges before the chance kingdom. A room leaps inside a spigot.
     The starved incompetent aborts throughout the worthless lifetime. The protein writes inside an undocumented sniff. The instrumental panel lies before the pipeline. The spike pinches the scope.
     The punished violence sandwiches the color after the unavoidable pain. A scarlet automobile prevails beneath a sinful stone. The bridge quibbles below a custard. Does an amber designer whistle with a cell?
     The.
     A puzzled tea runs beneath the combining prose. The feat hangs from a daylight. The rat derives the oxygen. Our occurrence ducks near a god.
     A diesel flowers before the rival. The wiser foot floats the faithful analogue. A chicken cows a megabyte. A fossil drains the content gulf. The crossword surfaces below a suicide.
     A near arithmetic breathes near the salary. The terrorist regains the slow aardvark. When will the designated shadow bake the military? The main interview kids in the very food.
     The secular shame hurts the scrap. My system mutters near a concern. A slippery giant does the kind holder. The rational sneak inhibits a tone.
     How will a chapter stick the foreigner? How can the meaningless pacifier monkey the nurse? Past the joke bores the approval. The enclosed advance pokes a moderate epic. Does the similar army pinch my elected soldier? The holy flies outside this swamped mystic.
     A slang drowns its operating alarm. The photo fumes below a hearing angle. How does the existence enter near the independent alternative? The enabling rocket despairs on top of a poet. An estate graduates on top of the located penguin.
     A damp psychologist assumes the food. Underneath a fighting lens worries a smallish motive. This bursting home experiments before the client. The musical turns without the highway.
     The hotel snacks beside a chemical. The cynical chocolate strains opposite a crisis. Does this sneak blood fume against the creator? Will a coast pant? Will the hand expand?
     The censor beams the flag. Will a functioning pope support a mounted toad? An unbalanced timetable yawns behind the meet defeat. A bedroom stretches around the global bigotry. The race writes. The predecessor guards an incapable contempt.
     When will the salary balance the expiring newcomer? The article bores! The advance rules without the arch! After the connecting human peers every par alien. The excess vends the fatuous courier. The carbon appends an inane sink.
     A four yawn cautions. How will the humorous concentrate refrain? The backbone flashes into the less premise. The servant retracts a voluntary flour.
     Beneath the mill bores the wetting pig.The kiss entitles my funded ballot throughout the throat. Our rose hastens a sample over the derived metric. The roundabout well coats the explicit truth. The stone persists.

II.
Is and declare.
And obstructing pursuit.
He character of laws assent life manly war purpose facts the an and is.
Wholesome their their officers petitioned.
Time organizing laws.
Be it pursuing at;
To as our of of;
And to and of liberty to others.
That coasts establishing.
Of our our inhabitants has in them.
Wanting justice returned for alter.
Appealed their the by to.
Them political;
That the with bodies allegiance;
Kept armies be constitution of invested and destroyed right when reduce.
In legislate.
Introducing states are it;
Alone are captive.
Murders ravaged;
Ages against people annihilation eat whose plundered for the assent fit;
Bear mankind by to we and all among patient totally to made.
Distant and our public to hither fatiguing at colonies to.
His tyrant.
Is citizens that shall cruelty is that imposing his into of our has prove he these we their;
Institute judges consent: former his our whose;
Taxes the without to.
They representative them endeavoured acts inestimable the and.
Own britain and large out by future.
Called cause these war with invariably the;
These state has god and an decent all an armies;
Has tenure example publish;
Standing compliance have.
Amount whenever.
Right all;
The and prevent;
To bands;
Legislature to a the.
Large to and and.
He now the in power have of colonies: having for.
Them of history jury: form constrains every every time;
A works of governed evinces has;
We representatives.
This benefits government abolishing with just.
Necessity these he suspending is created.
Settlement of of of to an;
Powers mock accommodation it.
These long justice which free.
Is such each and too.
Swarms pretended same tyranny high causes;
Foundation obstructed power has;
Connected from and;
States creator absolute with has.
From the;
Their and.
Redress unless that.
Transient exposed dissolved superior and powers opposing our consent disposed a on in.
Of acquiesce;
Therefore hath.
Absolute sent substance impel connections of render of a warned he;
Whereby direct.
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Administration over the and.
Charters for these and earth the have;
As trial;
To such king neglected & government legislature.
Of to they uncomfortable for people happiness--that and;
Dangers refusing and for civilized it equal other of cutting.
The commit war native --that of he places our governments;
Candid all a for here interrupt;
The alliances to of of;
For fundamentally our them safety.
For by present of mutually jurisdiction;
To themselves the altering these tried.
The and people for only we time.
Are do other enlarging their arbitrary cases among barbarous usurpations others.
Without security--such;
The likely erected.
Has to refusing accordingly to.
Experience these.
Of harrass have under of has dissolutions.
Are warfare that;
Punishment be others marked.
Establishment and.
He public us has government their intentions themselves for.
Seas them us the he truths our fortunes pressing over declaring good from authority for laws;
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Into importance.
Powers a peace he;
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To in.
People have;
Certain of it separation waging to.
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In the inevitably independent houses these of;
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With new their off for of abolishing establish their endeavoured;
Most for amongst large to common people government establishing and laws payment united which.
For their the paralleled.
Which and the legislation: of english our new world: brittish declare;
The a.
Jurisdiction firmness fellow dissolved have is not.
So our unworthy here pass of;
Of lives time.
The divine.
Encourage burnt reminded;
Thus domestic the large of of ages our times beyond form the denounces the purpose from subject people invasions they immediate any suffer our usurpations seem rights;
States themselves in desolation;
By our all of for rights already the inhabitants for;
Has in.
Friends assent on constrained abolish while judiciary of armed by of sole entitle britain province is train independent.
Once attend established injuries such us british this;
Full more levy should ought which we them;
Us sufferable unwarrantable history.
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Protecting measures;
Their declaring death of consent;
Us boundaries a us from country;
Obtained multitude the.
Military as deaf injury many and friends acts to brethren us:.
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Independent dependent rights free and.
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Nation to seas the right states.
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Deriving conclude peace remaining scarcely nature's world and be by of formidable has affected our be of judge executioners giving them to taking power evils system;
Refused to nor;
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Its refused he of our abuses america should they requires right seas.
To most their;
We tyrants in operation a a our been political;
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Of prince cases abdicated pass.
Has at.
Extend should destruction.
And magnanimity attentions he to of;
Object people duty rule of pretended;
Lives shewn secure;
Systems to right another with the a this he design for legislatures has light by mercenaries;
The good and;
People quartering frontiers trade has we to commerce states on;
Support and to course;
Of happiness migrations.
His absolved when that a to men sacred solemnly bring depository oppressions insurrections the;
Are and.
Correspondence our between the rectitude;
Laws all only the that them.
And the.
Legislative hold consanguinity.
Utterly excited foreign;
Been effect absolute.
To forms.
Repeated them to their.
We enemies these our the long to out transporting powers districts representation to and the on are.
The equal salaries the they the the to has becomes hold;
And that the mankind from;
For such he among great.
For people attempts will their;
Be to;
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General submitted;
The emigration provide independent incapable for separate peace for.
United conditions;
Congress us answered without of the they terms: ought the free them.
And the of;
Principles despotism them which rule been governments: instrument assembled.
To of have our undistinguished.
Is unless new necessity  which savages his the in dissolve.
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And ends nature.
Of abolishing causes for within kindred records respect in conjured perfidy and define.
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Great therein laws such our our the our.
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And and becomes in but their;
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Separation repeated of time of right to to to let station.
That compleat when which he and unusual the the;
Would prudence governments;
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Them in.
Necessary repeated.
Protection the have;
To object his.
The and most do;
The events and.
To or which known depriving of laws these world these all we the the have pledge laws hands at of.
Foreign the of on of unfit most fall is forms;
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Become government assume to;
All a of and honor;
Justice among sexes.
The be we indeed in;
Arms so.
Of civil.
Taken begun in act.
Mean them of petitions by.
New guards tyranny their may to;
Forbidden to;
Are a and same.
Head together;
The by he till should to;
Voice he our.
Firm parts.
Circumstances foreigners necessary the of our has on.
That self-evident connection a opinions for in.
To neighbouring on them protection his has to and of or to legislatures things as;
Totally against with brethren elected to to state;
Unacknowledged the.
Has sufferance its population those trial pass their of have among.
To and conditions been colonies instituted therefore;
Of merciless of destructive most he.
For and.
And powers with and on;
Other long.
For colonies exercise.
Towns for to men than hither their to.
Dictate refused;
The have.
Changed suspended the;
Relinquish appealing of to;
States: these convulsions and;
Combined render all are alter of of with.
To raising usurpations.

III.
I, the loved
I, the engulfed
I, the remigrated
I, the existence
I, the infinitive
I, the derivative
I, the human
I, the darkness
I, the glass
I, the interviewed
I, the disaffiliating
I, the trees
I, the air
I, the future
I, the past.
I, the present.
I, the moment.
I, the now
I, the dead
I, the alive
I, the opponent
I, the ally
I, the language
I, the idea
I, the universe
I, the cosmos
I, the sensual
I, the lover
I, the writer
I, the poet
I, the artist
I, the fearful
I, the form
I, the painting
I, the paper
I, the words
I, the letters
I, the color
I, the winter hallway
I, the black alleyway of bricks and cobblestone
I, the one who knocks
I, the fourth of July
I, the independent
I, the atom
I, the bullet
I, the bohemian
I, the philosopher
I, the homeless
I, the clouds
I, the sky
I, the rain  
I, the music
I, the harp
I, the angel
I, the devil
I, the decider
I, the canceler
I, the road
I, the pavement  
I, the stone
I, the wall
I, the cornfield
I, the golden
I, the emotion
I, the follower
I, the leader
I, the second
I, the minute
I, the hour
I, the day
I, the week
I, the month
I, the year
I, the biennium
I, the triennium
I, the lustrum
I, the decade
I, the jubilee
I, the century
I, the millennium
I, the overseer
I, the god
I, the who  
I, the what
I, the which
I, the where
I, the why
I, the question
I, the answer
I, the dream
I, the reality  
I, the in between
I, the ecstasy
I, the joy
I, the pain  
I, the populous
I, the I
I, the you
I, the
Do not try to understand this.
Jose Remillan Oct 2013
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...
This is an English translation of my Filipino poem entitled, "SLEX" which is an acronym for South Luzon Expressway. SLEX is the road that connects the imperial Manila (capital of the Philippines) to the southern provinces of the region. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Luzon_Expressway

For my childhood sweetheart.

Quezon City, Philippines
October 11, 2013
G Rog Rogers Aug 2017
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
©2017
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.
The poem is a mash-up using actual headlines from the Apr. 29, 2010 Chicago Sun-Times Website.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
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
Copyright 2010 JB Marshall
Nat Lipstadt Jul 2014
A Roman Catholic concept rooted in a Jewish tradition where, if you cannot attend Sunday mass, you can go to the Saturday mass, the evening prior...

http://t.answers.com/answers/#!/entry/anticipated-mass-definition-in-the-roman-catholic-church,4ffcc10b­7af68a84dcfcad8b

not a religious man,
another "ain't behaving Jew,"
been long time passing,
since I went to a synagogue
of my own free will

(that,
free will,
a subject,
I won't discuss,
a free will choice,
unlike this poem
which writes itself,
me, just the telephone company
common carrier transmitting)


the holy days and
the holidays
come cycling through,
recycled sung sing tunes from
genes that once trained,
once disturbed and reawakened,
pass it on down
willingly or unwanted,
the calendar and
human marker thereupon,
in your face, undeniable,
you are, or start,
being what
they want you to be

been to midnight mass
on a Christmas past,
with a friend who happened
to be a Jesuit priest,
yeah, I'm an electric eclectic
ecclesiastical poetic natty vibe,
with many a
neutral nomenclature,
happens to live with an atheist,
so, tonight, we watch together
at her suggestion,
Fiddler On The Roof

boy oh boy
there I am,
Tevye the Poet,
writing poems on the roof
up on the wide screen,
talking to god
every where I go,
whatever I am doing,
even cursing the
Cossack ***** of the traffic hell on the
Long Island Expressway,
*******, you see

{but you grow weary
waiting for a writ called
Anticipated Mass,
and not a sermon
of a nonreligious miscreant,
who just happened to be
created, born on
the Jewish Festival of Booths,
in an R.C. hospital
on Fifth Avenue,
right next to his coreligionists edifice,
Mt. Sinai
(go figger, all part of the plan,
says my fellow new yorker, Allah}


if you are busy Sunday,
NFL football perhaps,
or a summer FIFA World Cup match,
Wimbledon working,
while on your deck surfing,
(Go Federer)
or a working stiff,
serving man for tips,
waitressing, taxi driving,
in order
not to starve,
for a living
must be made on
the day of rest,
so you go to
Anticipated Mass,
the eve of the day before
the prom dance

now that is something I like,
a flexibility that
inflexible dictums and regs
don't often offer,
like birth control being ok,
every other day

but anticipating my prayers,
just a bit too
OCD compulsive organized,
no matter
9:00am or midnight,
or even 6:00pm
the night before,
I can't anticipate
when the need to
go verse
with The Lord above,
arises

so I like to inform you,
when anticipating
the wine and the wafer,
the sabbath candle lighting,
the prayer rug time,
don't have to wait,
for a mass, a mullah's call,
or a minyan,
do a Tevye!

speak to him
with this Rx prescription,
"as needed"

let your own mass
be lightened, lighted, leviathaned,
relieved, celebrated,
the freedom from
anticipation and feel free
to listen to what god has to say,
cause he loves those
individual requests,
custom crafted,
even noises simple
grunted with good intent,
for those who posses not
the gift of
god gab

an informal sort,
a busy deity,
who appreciates brevity,
which is why
he gives my
long poems short shrift,
but sometimes attends
to my low whispered
observations for the needy,
for the masses,
whose body,
in his image,
I human share
and so often,
pray for...
Morgan Jan 2014
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
Arcassin B Oct 2015
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.
Wolves in the Ark
jerard gartlin Mar 2010
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.
Nicole Lourette Dec 2010
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
Anais Vionet Jul 2023
It was a cool, overcast and windy Sunday morning in March 2014. We were about 50 miles from Paris, at my Grandmère’s (grandmother’s) farm. She lives in Paris, but she owns a Château and surrounding 1,100-hectare farm that she calls her “fall retreat.”

Between three and five hundred people work on the farm, the Château and its surrounding shops (some work is seasonal). The shops sell wool, cheese, wine and ice cream produced on the farm, as well as touristy things. Many of the employees live on the farm, rent free. Their homes, owned by the farm, form a hameau (village). I didn’t understand much of this at the time, I was 10 years old.

My Grandmère was dedicating a new store just off the village green. The green wasn’t square, like those in the UK and it didn’t have swings or a slide, as I’d hoped. You’d think I’d know a hamlet my Grandmère owned but this place was alien to me. I’d arrived as part of her entourage but as the presentation ground on, I got bored. So, I took Charles by the hand and off we went.

We (my little nuclear family) were living in the UK then and we were visiting Paris for the Easter holiday. The fall before, as the school year had started, a girl in my grade (4th grade or year 5 in the UK) had been kidnapped and murdered on her way home from school. My Grandmère was “having none of it,” and hired Charles, a burly, red-headed, just retired, ex-NYC cop, as my security, escort and practical nanny. He’d been with me for about half a year, at that point, and we’d become fast friends.

It was the height of the pre-summer, Easter season. In addition to the villagers, there were tourists everywhere, picnicking on the grass, visiting the shops and playing football (soccer). Most of the tourists seemed to have small children that ran around. The townspeople sat on benches, eating ice creams and playing dominoes or quoits, a horseshoes-like game, played on a sand pitch.

You couldn’t mistake the two groups - the natives and the tourists. The towns folk were plainly dressed, the women in simple smocks and sweaters, the men wearing slacks, tweed jackets, berets or tag hats. The tourists spoke other languages - there were Italians, Britts, Germans and even Americans - who wore sports logoed t-shirts, shorts, sneakers and baseball caps.

As Charles and I wandered around the village, I asked, “Can we get a sirop?” One of the most popular drinks, in France, is a grenadine sirop (soda). We stopped and as Charles bought us drinks, I wandered a way off. He found me, moments later, hanging from a tree limb, upside down, my hair sweeping the grass like a broom.

“Stop that,” he’d said, swooping me up and off the branch with his soda free hand and setting me alright. As he picked leaves out of my hair, he said, “Don’t wander away from me like that, you know better.” “Yes sir” I agreed. A moment later, he picked me up and placed me atop a low, four-foot parapet wall that ran around the village. I could feel sharp, rough stone edges through my cotton dress but I drank my sirop and didn’t complain.

“You saved me from the dragon,” I said, after my first few sips.
“What dragon?” he said.
“The dragon that had me in its teeth, over there.” I pointed at the tree where I’d been upside down.
“I saved you from yourself,” he said, as he looked around the square.
“That’s silly,” I announced, “how can someone need saving from themselves?”
“Oh, It happens all the time,” he said.

The event ended and as people began leaving, they filed by us on the sidewalk. The village men doffed their hats and the women nodded a quick curtsey as they passed. “Why are they doing THAT?” I asked Charles, “am I a princess?”
“No,” he snorted, “you’re no kind of princess. They’re doing it out of respect for your illustrious grandmother.” “Oh,” I said disappointedly.

A moment later our car pulled up and we were headed back to the city. “Did you have fun?” my Grandmère asked, “yes mam,” I answered. “Did you behave yourself?” She followed up. “Mostly,” I admitted. She nodded, pronouncing, “That’s how it should be,” as the limo turned onto the autoroute (expressway) and accelerated for lunch in Paris.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Illustrious: a person that’s highly admired and respected.
Causticji May 2015
Something stinking this way comes
not just the nausea of cobblestone
on Sundays and all public holidays
'neath the stairwell of insidious intent
hooked onto the static line for ages
the suicidal fish sinks deeper in the
pool of bile but cannot drown, so he
toes the line of the drama queen via
the lament-laden path trodden by
god's servant, past the corner where
foreignicating correspondents collide,
turn right or left – doesn’t matter
which way he chooses, it’s wrong.

The misfortune of being missed by
a Fortuner, he proceeds to jump off
Tilak Bridge and is hit by Range Rovers
endeavouring to hit and run after
the mundane Meru that lost its wind
shielding itself from the tyranny of
daddy's little boys with flaccid toys and
***** mouths and itchy trigger fingers,
misadventure interrupted they pause to
douse the flames of the dying but
urea isn't carbon dioxide; it's piscicide.

Something Kafkaesque calls him but it's
masked with the aroma of ******* served
in the nick of time from 22 through 71,
past Lahore Chowk down Baker St.
Pedestrian rat on the wrong side of
a one-way expressway to your skull
about turn into pitch black cul-de-sac,
scurries in through the out grille gushing
acerbic symphonies from the basement,
storm-water drain up against the tide,
never learnt to swim yet he tries.

After a while, she'll be home and dry.

The low ceiling makes him slouch
in and out through endless maze,
daily grind never takes a break
no room to turn around walk out,
yet again he forgets not to stretch
yet another fresh bump on his skull
now there are four score maybe more
benign, perhaps, who knows?
rats can't scan, only cats can.

The ache's spread to the limbs
the head and the hypertensive heart
then anterior now posterior
the costive claustrophe bleeds again,
it's a duct with a view downstairs,
he's a ****** not entirely by choice,
tom cat jerry kitten eating in and out
the pie is beyond grasp, at the exit
lies a mousetrap sans the bait,
nothing else for him to do but
work his fingers to the bone.
Lucius Furius Jun 2018
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?"
Hear Lucius/Jerry read the poem:  humanist-art.org/old-site/audio/SoF_065_children.MP3 .
This poem is part of the Scraps of Faith collection of poems ( humanist-art.org/scrapsoffaith.htm )
Ren Dec 2014
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!
Ria Nagpal Jun 2013
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.
Poetry competition in Sec 1!!! We came second!!!
Thanks to Hset Hset, Asina, Shayna, Sarah is helping to write this poem.
Travis Green Feb 2022
You have no idea of how much I madly crave your honey love
To feel your glorious gentle touch upon my body
To caress my flesh, press my mouth on my big-bosomed *******
As you release your infectious breath over the surface
Seize and squeeze my sweet dark *******
Spread your tongue over them, ******* silky smooth treasures
Weave your delectable masculine dreams
With my precious perfumed existence
Make me feel the magical highs

I wanna soar into your matchlessly marvelous myriad world
Surrender to your supreme strength, to your stellar muscularity
Bask in your gorgeous city boy swagger
Your flex is so tender, thrilling, and transcendent
Your deep, ****, and vigorous voice makes my body tingle
Your amorous champagne eyes sparkle
Like an abundant amount of shimmery diamonds and gems
I feel the brightest bliss there is in your presence
When you take command of my limbs

I burn with every touch, with my hands on your beard
Stroking, smelling, glowing, it’s so refreshing
You rock my body on and on
You got me so glazed and enamored
By your seductively smooth allure
You are like a sweet and exquisite snickers cake
Like a tasty and savory M&M drip cake
Like soft hot pancakes with brown sugar syrup

You got a super seductive flow that makes me glow
When you show it to me, when you jazz up my body
With your artful ardent love
You are my bright golden sunshine in the spotlight
A deep, distinctive, and dancing lover
A comfortable sublime spot to fall into
And see the lively, luminescent moonlight
Hovering in the brilliantly immense and inviting night sky
Hold me in your arms, in your wings
Where we take off on the expressway to ecstasy
certifiednutcase Oct 2013
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)
Betty Apr 2014
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
Wk kortas Sep 2021
One thought this is how London looked after The Blitz
Although there was no one's finest hour to be cited
Commemorating how these torched shells of buildings came to be,
Standing not in defiance as much as the indifference of gravity
To finishing a job better not left incomplete,
Given they were fit for nothing but rats and pigeons
(And they probably not without their misgivings)
But one night we were driving over to Jersey
To obtain grain alcohol or some other contraband,
I'd observed the odd single-bulb shining out of
What purported to be a windowless frame,
Misbegotten wished-upon stars
Failing to deliver upon the most prosaic of aspirations,
And that evening I'd drank with a taciturn fury,
My companions shaking their heads,
Saying For chrissakes, you're less ******* fun than usual.
Go the hell home, or haunt a ******' graveyard
,
And I did not travel upon that highway again
Until I left The Island for good, grabbing a ride
From a friend who was a fellow native
Of the cold, cow country Upstate
And as we approached the Throgs Neck Bridge,
I turned away from the window, telling my buddy
I'm gonna grab some shut-eye; you can wake me
Once we hit the Palisades
.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:  As anyone who is native to the area will tell you with such vigor and frequency that you'd rather they didn't, it's not "Long Island" but "THE Island".
Anais Vionet Nov 2022
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.
BLT Marriam Webster word of the day challenge: Nugatory: “of little or no consequence”

My movies: Clueless, Rushmore, Moonstruck, Shakespeare in love, Dr. Zhivago
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
an actor's guild
Mercurychyld Sep 2014
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
Rage, disappointment, disgust of life sometimes...I know these well!
derelictmemory Jan 2014
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
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 !
Copyright October 14 , 2015 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
TheRiverStyx Jul 2018
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.
This one's longer than prior stuff I have published, but I hope you have enjoyed.
Fill Apr 2016
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
this is the mind’s subtle configuration:
    light, dark, vacuity. a metastasis of
    sound from dispersions. except
a few stray birds alight umbilical tightwire.
    i start to dream the clarity of something
comparable to                            

                                 ­                        vertigo.
                                           in that high place,
pouncing, daringly immense, this experiment
is in the mind’s operative. but you have no idea
what I am pertaining to, or what I am describing
to you, as I do not have maps to begin with, nor
do I have the blueprints to succinctly depict where
to go in case my lostness intersperses with yours:
that there is only precision in where we want to go,
but never where we are at present, and that in the long haul,
         long-winded ruminations are waste of time
and that to have wallowed deep in the grovel of mirth,
to sully in superfluity, and to give no care as though
    120 kilometers per hour in the expressway, shotgun,
hands spread in the sky towering like lampposts yearning
for a steady acquisition of light, the sounds that take the
  form of apparitions and we scream, yes we scream,
with tenderness and rhetoric,

                                          are, of course sensuous narratives
the heart measures in quatrain, in caesuras, in verse
    and breadth ( and or so, the simplified electric delight
      of a word’s sweet measure hurled to the rotund of ear as
     to move close in speaking / whispering )
to permit ourselves to boldly gasp for breath
     after the thrill of realizing the terseness of things,
               that allow us to speak beautifully for ourselves.
Charles Sturies Jun 2018
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.
Andreas Simic Nov 2017
Journey to Tranquility©

As I nestle into the seat of my
Far from new mode of transport
I steel myself for the journey ahead
In my mind I plan out the route for this day

I'm sure bumper to bumper was invented here
There will be that slow crawl up the parkway
This will turn into the raceway as we hit the expressway
Where I let her go

Road rage is the new adage
So one must be aware not to stare or glare
This gauntlet must be run to arrive alive
Success here brings relief as we turn,

Turn onto a highway of only two lanes
Gains can be made here though watch for deer
Home after home turns into farm land
As the lights of the city disappear

Another left, then one more with pavement
Becomes gravel for many a mile
Don’t go too far there it is on the right
A smile appears as it comes into sight

The scurry of a fox across the driveway
The chirp of birds as you exit the car
The smell of a lake and its shore
You are at the cottage and tranquility galore

It is worth the drive every time.

Andreas Simic©

— The End —