"garages" poems
Bang!
I heard a firework go off.
I don't see any lights.
Oh, I think that was a garage door falling shut.
Or maybe someone slamming a door.
I don't want to think about what it might have actually been.
It's not like summer has come and gone months ago.
It's not like nobody has garages around here.
It's not like people slam doors loud enough for it to echo around the inside of my school.
It's not like I'm scared for me and my friends every time I enter the building.
It's not like that, I swear.
Everyone is scared.
Everyone is lashing out.
Everyone is on their toes.
Everyone is trying to become home-schooled.
We want to leave.
Not for boredom,
not for the next best thing.
But for safety,
for home.
Who's coming in the door next?
Who's going to stop them?
Who's going to survive?
Who is going to die?
Feb 20, 2018
Feb 20, 2018 at 6:32 PM UTC
Each generation’s majority makes choices that usher change
Lost pined for simple peace
Depression lived for human survival
Silence spoke for equality in a civil voice
Hippies fought war with flowers
Boomers drove for mad knowledge of self
Grunge nodded honesty from suburban garages
Y baptized Science as god
Mobs then anointed Orange Man as king
Down at the crossroads as means to their ends
For taxes, for borders, for babies, for guns, for Right
Trading truth, communal values and united dreams for their causes
How will we be remembered
As we watch this Heyday bloom
What will be this generation’s rallying cry
Will there be one
A culmination of past generation's trusted change
Lost, depressed, silent, free, self-aware, honest, doubting
Us
Here now
Strong
Watching the flames
Will we quietly turn away
As our world burns
Or will we tap a new strength
To face the fire
Together
© 2019 MJL
Apr 1, 2019
Apr 1, 2019 at 8:40 AM UTC
It’s like some beast
whose roar startles
drowsy landscapes
from a mechanical planet
where veins leak oil
where organs deoxidize
where bones lay scattered
unburied like discarded rods
homes are garages
churches are factories
cemeteries are junkyards
where all organisms operate
toward a singular optimum imperative:
EFFICIENCY
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 7:42 PM UTC
The day of the site visit
I hurried out at six fifteen to wait
For a train with a waning moon,
Bright Venus and Jupiter hovering
Above the skyline. The amber horizon
Turned to orange and pink
As scattered stars went dim.
Misread the schedule and arrived
Downtown three quarters of an hour
Before my Electric District connection.
An accidental gift to self.
I ascended, ate two breakfast sandwiches
I got for one dollar with a coupon,
Warm in my hands on a blue picnic table.
The sky grew light
Above the Lake and I wandered
Through Millennium Park. It was empty
Or nearly, which felt the same.
The sun broke the bent horizon
In chrome and ice. I took some pictures,
Then descended to find Track Five.
The day's light revealed
Hollow houses with cartoon stone applied
Like paint, unable to compete
For preeminence with two-car garages.
The newest were bigger and offered
In different colors, but all the same.
Driving conditions were excellent.
At sunset I stood on another platform
Above a busy highway. The last rays came
Through tree branches and melted
Into the pale sky as they left my face.
I had witnessed that sun's birth,
It had warmed me while I waited for my carpool,
Rested with me on a concrete planter after lunch.
I entered the city in darkness
A second time. Changed muddy boots
For clean shoes and hurried to the museum.
It was a free night, overcrowded
With families and children, so difficult
To find a quiet corner for contemplation,
Any sanctuary for my own small soul.
I descended, discovered the typewriters, then
Realized you and I were already there, just
In different colors, using different words,
Spending school vacation to view old paintings
And the Holiday Miniature Rooms.
It dawned and the future was brighter even
As I left the city in darkness.
Jan 15, 2019
Jan 15, 2019 at 3:29 PM UTC
are you afraid of parking garages
do you think of empty parking spaces
with empty cars beside them
like your own compartmentalized mind
do the empty spaces scare you
like my own scare me
are you afraid of the dust
are you afraid of the ghosts
sitting where people once were
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of the lonely silence
are you afraid of the concrete walls
that are more solid than anything
that you have ever created
are you afraid
that you'll be just as cold
just as lifeless
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of where they take you
are you afraid of the airports
that you always end up in
missing those that never come back
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid that you'll park
and that you'll never leave
are you afraid of parking garages
are you afraid of the flickering lights
and your own shadow
bouncing in front you
are you afraid of going somewhere
and never coming home
are you afraid of your home
and when they asked you where home is
did you stutter
because you almost said someone's name
instead of a place
or is your home that parking garage
blank and grey
empty and hollow
are you afraid of parking garages
[holyoak]
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 1:26 AM UTC
steel
oil
engineering
labor
converge
round a
Rocket 88
dead man’s
curve
prescient
precocious
capitalists
concoct
Edsels
Vegas
Chevelles
leaping
Impalas
leak
oil
staining
every
American
driveway
Pintos
chase
Gremlins
across
The Great Plains
gassing up
at
Rt 66
fillin
stations
scramblin
Midnight
Ramblers
detour to
take refuge
with Goats in
Big Sky
Indian
garages
440
Mustangs
nip
327
Stingrays
and
Mach IV
Cobras
get
snake bit
by Dart
wielding
Mopar
muscle
cars
long fins
chrome bumpers
and round fenders
still get bent in
Havana
but
Motor City is broke
nations outta gas
whole **** country
needs an overhaul
Ike Turner/Jackie Brenston: Rocket 88
Nelson Riddle: Route 66
7/19/13
Oakland
jbm
Oct 30, 2013
Oct 30, 2013 at 10:57 AM UTC
Took a bat to a truck at a party
It wasn't my truck
I was pretty drunk, it was at a party
Struck the glass and made the truck bleed
The owner wasn't even mad about it
He let me hit it again
He started beating it with me with a ski
Rich people have skis in their garages
Owner said it was his dad's truck
We beat it until it bled out in the street
It felt good to beat something
Feels good he said
To beat instead of get beat
-E (c) 2017
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 3:32 PM UTC
I’ve lived
my entire life
believing that
Home is building
A place where you
get creative with all
your fancy decorations
your fancy candle chandelier lightings
A place where I can cook
all my fancy gourmet meals
While watching my big fancy television
A place with my fancy four car garages
where I can park my fancy toys
Enter , live and lock my fancy twelve foot doors
As I spent all my fancy earnings
Then with a snap of my fingers
one morning I got wised up
I realized I was wrong the entire time
Those fancy things aren’t what
truly makes a home at all
I was wrong
I was broke wrong
Home is the space in between
your heart
Home is wherever I’m with you
Home is wherever love
resides , memories are created
like Instagram photos filling up your heart
And where laughter never ends.
Aug 29, 2018
Aug 29, 2018 at 6:19 PM UTC
A thousand doors ago
when I was a lonely kid
in a big house with four
garages and it was summer
as long as I could remember,
I lay on the lawn at night,
clover wrinkling over me,
the wise stars bedding over me,
my mother's window a funnel
of yellow heat running out,
my father's window, half shut,
an eye where sleepers pass,
and the boards of the house
were smooth and white as wax
and probably a million leaves
sailed on their strange stalks
as the crickets ticked together
and I, in my brand new body,
which was not a woman's yet,
told the stars my questions
and thought God could really see
the heat and the painted light,
elbows, knees, dreams, goodnight.
2.6k
You are ***
I remember you in hotel rooms,
You are ***
I remember you in redone garages,
A mother talking in her sleep
While lips and other things touch under covers
You are ***
I remember you after going out to get a drink from the garage
His back pressed against the old car
My knees on the ***** concrete.
You are ***
I remember you in dormitories
Being quiet because of paper thin walls
and awkward moments with unexpected roommates.
You are ***
I remember you in cars
Mine at 4 in the morning,
Every seat violated.
His car in the backseat
In the parking lot,
Public, but while snow fell down
First ****** in a car,
first ****** while looking at something so picturesque,
First from kisses down under,
You are ***
You are *** in the shower
You are *** in the morning
You are *** loud and hard
You are *** sensual and slow and quiet
You are *** yet to be had
You are *** in parts of me that should never be touched,
You are hot and sticky
Anywhere I want you
On my ******* or in my mouth
You are ***
And I want you.
Nov 9, 2010
Nov 9, 2010 at 7:24 PM UTC
cracked out
humble with heaps of pride
braggadocio Pinocchio
I haven’t slept in days
so watch the hours turn into haze
blown out of barely open windows
hide me from the world
I’m making a pristine machine - unbreakable
foreseeable as a weapon of poor taste
chasing wasted with chasers
are you shaking?
only with excitement
rage
hunger
My dad says get a job, get an education
so I chose a dead vocation with no hopes of vacations
and everybody is talking about the future as if it exists
it only exists in clenched fists and endless lists
of all the wrong turns you made on the journey
from then to now
I’m eating sacred cow meat - medium rare please
coming up with ways to scare these dumb ******* kids away from apathy
to put the shield over their hearts and the rifle in their hands
but wah wah nobody understands blah blah blah
shut the **** up for once
act like you actually have a pair of *****
even if you don’t
back in the day when we used to rob neighborhood garages of beer
and played with pills like candy
nobody threw tantrums about how unfair it all is
so you think the world owes you something?
the only thing it owes you is one death
so why are you wasting all of our time with your I could have saved the world
cry baby ********
I’m looking for slutty girls
pearl necklace on her checklist
so I can slam her on page verse
me versus the world, right?
left out by all the cool kids
drinking boohoo flavored kool-aid
so I made myself a parody of pretension
cunning, coming, ***********
you are the joke so I guess that makes me a punchline
I’m running sprints from the baseline until I’m throwing up the right choices
so continue with all of that angsty impotent sadness
so long as you stay out of my part of town
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 1:31 PM UTC
In the window of the pet shop
four small faces, lost.
Their owners, sick with worry,
want them found at any cost.
A quad of treasured family pets
roaming wild and free,
unmindful of the panic
they’re causing back in Leigh.
A sausage dog called Mini,
sleek and burnished dark.
She’s likely got a little voice
that is more squeak than bark.
Tinks: a sturdy Staffie,
with a plea on Facebook
praying for his safe return
his people beg you “have a look”
“in your sheds and garages,
or in the kids' playhouse.
You never know who could be there
‘cos he’s quiet as a mouse”.
A grumpy Border Terrier,
Underbitten, rough of coat
“Bill: a much loved dog, we miss him”
in shaky letters wrote.
And, last of all, would you believe
Someone’s lost their tortoise!
He’s been in the family since ‘77
(let’s hope he isn’t corpus).
For pets are no mere mortals,
nor fallible as we.
They’re up there on a pedestal,
in anthropomorphic fantasy.
Then one day they disappear,
our soppy hearts turn wretched.
No stick to throw, and if we did
none to go and fetch it.
On centre stage of family life
entangled in our tribe.
No separateness of species,
always by our side.
So if you’re there, or round about
And you should chance to see
Mini, Tinks or Billy
or a tortoise in his mid-thirties.
Tell the little pet shop -
it’s better late than never -
to mend an aching, wretched heart
who thought their best friend gone forever.
Jul 26, 2013
Jul 26, 2013 at 7:09 PM UTC
Down behind the communal garages,
Our knees were scabbed and scarred,
Badges of honour, to ten-year old savages,
Earnt in chasis' of burnt out cars.
There, on the side of a wall,
Nineteen-Sixteen, had been daubed in emulsion,
Just another target for our ball,
To find its meaning ? we had no compulsion.
It was a circular Nine, like a giant comma,
And the Six was rotund, as well,
Against all the rules Sister Mary of the Immaculate Madonna
taught, in those hand-writing classes from hell.
It was similar to a giant 1690,
I'd seen in another part of town,
On the gable-end of a property emptied,
Before an our street versus your street showdown.
Then one day, the Old Fella' explained,
In 1916 we stood up for ourselves,
A pride in our nation regained,
As the G.P.O. was shook to its shelves.
"Son, we tired of crawling on our belly,
Being beaten, battered and conned,
Surely you've heard me talk of Connolly ?"
I said, Yeh he's me favourite James Bond.
But this was Liverpool, Nineteen Seventy-Two,
And me Da' had been over here years,
What he was on about, I never had a clue,
Though it was the first time I ever saw him shed tears.
Mar 16, 2016
Mar 16, 2016 at 5:00 PM UTC
three of four funerals
gun collection, gun
long narrow boxes in the trunk of my first car
Dad’s dad, Bergen-Belsen, babbling
Dad’s mom, floorboards
Mom’s dad, collectibles
Mom’s mom, alcoholic
obituaries, guns, boxes, garages
adults, guns, St. Peter, Joni
Dad’s dad, lessons, dreams
Dad’s mom, cabbage recipe
Mom’s dad, extra hugs
Mom’s mom, low blows
memories, value, months
A pawn shop good rate
moral boundaries:
kids on the street, no parents
Aug 30, 2012
Aug 30, 2012 at 5:26 PM UTC
(Corpus Christi, Texas-circa 1947)
It's a short block, a cul-de-sac,
total of sixteen houses lining the street.
No sidewalks, the grass ends
where the curb begins.
A lone palm tree stands in the southwest corner of the front yard.
There were no fences separating the properties
Driveways, leading to the separated garages were the markers.
That didn't stop us, however-
The neighborhood was a continuous playground.
Many families were military-
in the U S Navy,
Or civil service employees
at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station
From those sixteen homes were twenty-three children-
some families had multiple children-
ranging from four to twelve..............I was six years old-
For the parents, finding peace and quiet
was only a dream
I learned to ride a bike on that street-
although learning how to stop it
was another issue.........
Had it not been for that lone palm tree.
I became very adept at timing-
knowing when to jump off that bike-
moments before impact-
Eventually, I learned what dad meant with
"USE THE BRAKES!"
A few bruises
some scrapes(arm or knee)
Nothing serious-
I survived!
As our parents aged, they often would reminisce about those days. Dad had two major philosophies about growing up: "Yards were made for kids to play in", and "If we can hear them, at least we know where they are!" Most of the time they were in our backyard playing on our swing and trapeze set that a family friend built for me and my brother. That yard was, basically, a "miniature park."
Our mother was, what is termed now, a "stay at home mom." She was the "overseer, watchdog, and resident medic." At least two or three times a day, she answered the phone, only to hear another mother's voice asking if their kid was over there, and if so, tell him, or her, to go home.
While reminiscing, the one thing that our father, mother, and my brother agreed on is, "That was one hell of a sturdy bike!" I never will forget that palm tree. It saved my a_ _ more than once!!
Society has changed, Donna, you're absolutely right!!
copyright: richard riddle July 20, 2015
revised: July 21, 2015
Jul 20, 2015
Jul 20, 2015 at 2:06 PM UTC
This is the 21st century.
you can have everything you want
if you work hard enough
you can have Christmas lights
in february
an indie girlfriend,
folk music,
and ***** clutter
in an urban apartment.
you can have cookies
whenever you want
but still,
you’ll want to blow up parking garages
sometimes.
Jan 25, 2013
Jan 25, 2013 at 12:14 PM UTC
Our hands our calloused.
Raised old too young,
Too much, too fast to function.
Beliefs and needs
Underestimated in light
Of the weight of life.
Unenlightened self-importance
Breeds nuisance for intelligence
Struggles are active and bound
Revised, undeniable, retractable,
Forming, foaming at the mouth
We flow truth into new strife.
For those who can see through the plastic,
We made it out alive, with luck.
I try not to think of those days when
Dripping, pouring, outward noises
Made me their benefactor in shaking off
The incandescent light from garages long since passed.
I remind myself to shower, once more
This time, with every small drag I smell Propane...
Like leaves carnivaled in a spiral moth,
But it's just the smoke from my cigarette...
So maybe it is Propane...
I find this world to be quite amusing.
My body is a temple for the act of living once.
I am not concerned with long life, I'm mortal.
Experience all and see all, and thereby
Learn the meaning behind the words
That are written in peoples' eyes
So you can be trusted, too.
As long as you can trust yourself,
You'll see the colors realign
Unlike the mother who spoke before me
I will be the father this time
Swerving, slurring, shivering.
Can you hear me? Are you reading this?
**** not away those shreds of extra skin
Always remember how cold it is for me.
Try to conceive of a place for you and I
I will be sure to be asleep when the clouds
Erupt into showers of our pure enjoyment...
I invite you, too.
Feb 18, 2013
Feb 18, 2013 at 6:10 AM UTC
I have a friend who plays guitar
I've worked with thousands ... but none quite like him.
His chord choices, the melodies and the riffs that he plays
They can only come from within.
He's been out living as a big rock star
But that's not quite the world that you'd think.
It's a rugged, rough struggle of perseverance and passion
And your life flashes by in a blink.
He isn't a shredder as are many these days
Never cramming notes where they don't belong.
He is tasteful and creative, a sound so original
His strings envelop the songs.
He has no need to display some arrogant plumage.
He doesn't show off with any thousand-note solos.
He doesn't do intros that are way too long.
His moody style transcends virtuoso.
He is my friend and proven it so
Once guiding me through a valley of black.
Not with his music, although that helped.
He did so with his hand on my back.
A music teacher once told me that
"Music is the silence between notes".
If that is true, then his silence is golden
As I love every song that he's wrote.
So all you pickers, players and shredders
in garages or with gold albums on the wall.
Take a lesson, from this humble man
You needn't over play at all.
But don't think that he is timid or without some flair
Don't make boastful quips that you think are so witty.
If the mood and the moment strikes him just so
He can make that guitar sound like Godzilla destroying a city.
I am so proud to call him my "Brother"
Such a musician, such a friend.
His music and his camaraderie have both touched my soul
and I hope that neither see's end.
Mar 12, 2018
Mar 12, 2018 at 7:41 AM UTC
Destination delayed, off course.
Life is a city bus. For some, at least. On schedule, same route,
Never a trip. Strange people sleeping next to you, the creepy man in a
Trench coat that always stands up.
And the smell of ***** from the child sitting alone, a tired look on their face
Before they realize their mother already got off.
They are an orphan now. Wandering between places that they are supposed to think
Of as family.
The attitude kicks in, drugs and suicide,
Soon it will all end. Abducted by demons left as inheritance, her mother was a *****
Time to accept her legacy,
Escape from what she has dealt with and run, a savage salve now,
New York **********
The city bus she started in has crashed,
Off course and alone. She has no path. She writes poetry to keep herself sane.
She isn't really a ***** She releases about them.
Really, she lives on the streets, robbing from book stores and using old chalk from
Abandoned garages to paint her emotions.
Guerrilla artist, known by many, but not known at all.
Shaved her hair off and dressed as a man, cheaper than the designer ****
That is expected of women.
I blame the city bus.
Nov 7, 2013
Nov 7, 2013 at 10:38 AM UTC
Pop bottles. Boxes of them.
The old man brought them home.
He collected them on the construction site, between lifts.
Sometimes it would be days between lifts,
So he filled time collecting bottles.
*Hires, Fanta, Tab, Fresca, 7 Up, Mountain Dew,
Canada Dry*...
Emptied by men, like him, from all over.
What conversations did he have with them
When he picked up the empties.
Did he indulge? He'd have liked Vernors.
Pop bottles were as good as gold.
Large bottles, a nickel: Small, two cents.
He kept us busy, weeding, straightening nails, digging, mixing cement, building fences, painting them, and the house;
Root cellars, garages, additions;
In fair, wet, or hot conditions.
Winter had it's own cuffs.
We'd cash in the bottles at Walker Bros.
Every Sunday he'd leave for weeks,
Up North, to places like Kapuskasing and Hearst.
He must've been thinking about us up there,
Collecting our bottles,
In fair, wet, or hot conditions.
May 7, 2018
May 7, 2018 at 10:03 PM UTC
The world changes around me but not as I sit perched,collecting memories and organizing them in my thoughts that sprout up through cracks as would a **** in concrete. A dandelion. Not you, a rose, like in Tupac's poem. And i digress because thats what I do more often than not. We speak of our impressionist dreams that are just alike, but not yet realized. Not a one. Well one or two but that's it. And that's only a tip of an iceberg. Which is us in danger of melting like the rest of the revolutionaries along with all the changes occuring around us. Will our love change right along with us and everything else? how will it be to be forty and married? Would we be content? would you go search for him? If you found god would you be done with me. Would you declare me a heretic if I didn't go to church and let jesus live inside me along with the rest of my collectibles. If you found god, would I pretend to have as well so as to not lose you. Hopefully, and isn't that all we are, a sack full of fast foods, hope and regrets. Nothing will go south or sour! We can't let it! Our love will survive all the ****** gods, alcohol, ****** alleys, concrete basketball courts, blacks in the ghetto, american presidents, economic revolutions, rapists, murderers, taxes, mortgages and regime changes. My tongue, along with my eyes, along with my lips, along with my fingers, along with my hair, along with my hair,along with my grey matter, along with my heart, does truly believe we will love longer, harder, deeper, truer and out last, out live, out happy, out joy, out defeat, out wit everyone. I told the elders we don't bother to pray. But we dream very well and not in the real world, not in their world, but in our world. The one we created for ourselves to fly in and out of rain clouds and swim in black water thats flooded on the inside of parking garages. I want to tell you things in a way that can convey myself and still be understood fully. I'm not sure if it is possible to get a ride, convey,write or paint my mind, my soul, my heart properly enough. but if anyone could ever understand my sore joints, and dances with death,it'd be you right? Because we are the same. we have been drinking from the same cup. and been dealt the same ****** hand but at different games. you are the lotus on your wrist and I am the owl in my throat and it means everything yet nothing to everyone else's big scheme. and still everything to ours. you are the only one here who understands why I think rain puddles with oil in them are beautiful.
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 9:58 AM UTC
In these days of
Feeling like we are wrong..
Wrong for having feelings
Emotions
We are told that we must always
BE HAPPY
Get a good job
Wife
Husband
Life
Kids
House
Car
Truck
And let's not forget all those toys we have to have in our kitchens, living rooms, and attached garages.
The latest game
The biggest TV
And anything that is the latest generation of Samsung or Apple
If you have all of these things, it is guaranteed: you will be happy.
But here is the FLAW.
You aren't happy because you dont have all of the things society says that you should have to be happy.
Once you get these things, society just replaces all of these things with new things.
Newer games
Bigger TV's
And of course!
The latest generation of anything Apple or Samsung
So what is the point of striving for all of these things when it is never going to be enough?
Something will always be better than what you have.
Unless you choose for it not to be.
You have the decision before you to be HAPPY.
Enjoy what you have.
The right game
The right TV
Apples in the fridge and *** is Samsung?
Once you stop worrying about being what society wants to be and be who you want to be
Isn't that happy?
Jul 29, 2018
Jul 29, 2018 at 8:10 PM UTC
By the old garages near the railway sidings
slipping or sliding, through the tiding hiding
away, or near to the solemn aspects of ******
with ease, she can tease the eve of your heave-
** or go, no, stay, she says, just today, or all
of your tomorrows shall be forgotten
Lonely was the name on a tag, lagged, left
forgotten at the bottom of the river, where
she lay, today, floating away-
But he stays, the way his spirit lays, let( )down
or all around this town, how it lingers;
the memory of love or lust on drunken Friday
nights by the fright of old Frank Alight, setting
alight the houses in furor, or moor the more
he bores by the moored shore of that amour
armoured, charmed, alarmed at the speech
patterns in the night sky, as she lay down
to die, or to cry, questioning why, Frank
could try and do this, Brutus, brutally
mutually assured destruction, social construction
or constriction, the friction of hands
around the throat, she never floats, just sinks
corpses stink, porous ink stained every lane
leading to the place where in disgrace, he beat
her face, and replaced the lace, in the place
leading to the lake
Aug 12, 2014
Aug 12, 2014 at 4:54 PM UTC
Caustic doorway blues
The fog sets in,
and the moon doesn't glow
when brick structures crumble
Rats in worn carpeting, writhing
The screaming from pensive terminals
and insects live on dead wood
trees felled in hollow rounds
This is the end of something warm
These are days of hydrogen loneliness
and grey skies applaud the tarmac
Pornographers snap pictures
of silhouettes in garages
and the playground hears no love
when gunshots deafen the trees
and the old mattress is sodden
Stale alcohol pungency
near the alleyway, dormant today
But the lights are still glowing
in the house by the canal
where somebody's memories still linger
Nov 17, 2013
Nov 17, 2013 at 4:34 PM UTC
black coffee
6 a.m.
old garages
tomato sandwiches
toy planes still in the plastic
Margaritaville on casette tape
Sunday's are car dealership days
tabasco sauce on every dish
two-bite pinchers when we were kids
every boy's name is Mitch
May 27, 2015
May 27, 2015 at 1:04 AM UTC