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Grahame Jun 2014
A  MOONLIT  KNIGHT.

Fern rises and looks out of her window.
Silver shards of moonlight lick the lawn.
She who once felt gay and oh so joyous,
Now feels oh so desolate and lorn.

Will she ever find true love again?
She before has never felt so low.
Should she, for love, continue searching?
Or give up by ending it here and now?

Outside, all is monochrome and still,
Inside, Fern is still and very sad.
Will she feel happiness again?
Who knows how long she’ll feel this bad?

At the stroke of midnight, there’s a change,
There seems to be a disturbance in the air.
Gradually something seems to materialise
On the lawn, a shape, come from where?

It is a knight, armoured cap-à-pie,
On a horse, for war caparisoned.
From his saddle hangs a jousting shield,
A silver moon on it is designed.

A white plume is mounted on his helmet,
On his lance a white pennon is tied.
The knight looks at her, at her window,
Silently he sits and does bide.

He raises a gauntleted hand and beckons,
Should she stay in, or venture out?
In her white nightdress she goes downstairs,
Deciding to see what it’s all about.

Cautiously she opens up the door,
And putting her head out, looks outside.
The knight still sits, patiently waiting.
Fern wonders what might now betide.

Slipping on an old pair of shoes,
She slowly walks over to the knight.
In her wake she leaves a dewy trail,
And as she nears, the knight fades from sight.

Fern wonders what this all might mean,
Is she dreaming or is she awake?
Is, what she has seen, been real?
Or has she made a big mistake?

Then, whilst standing there in wonder,
She happens to look down at the ground.
Where the knight was, the grass is trampled,
As though a horse has curvetted around.

Then she hears a sound from behind her,
And startled, Fern quickly turns round.
Her house no longer seems to be there,
In its stead, a keep there is stound.

The sound she hears is a woman calling,
“My Lady, please come back here inside.
You shouldn’t be alone out in the dark,
Please come back and in your chamber bide.”

The woman, from a window, looks at Fern.
“Excuse me, are you addressing me?”
Fern directs the question at the woman,
Who replies to her, “Of course, my Lady.”

“’Tis not safe out at this time of night,
And you are in your night attire dight,
So if someone, of you, catches sight,
You’ll not be seen in a good light.”

Before Fern can think of what to say,
She hears the sound of a galloping horse.
It is getting nearer in the dark.
She hopes that things will now not get worse.

“My Lady, quickly, please get you inside,
Do not just stand there as if dazed.
Hurry now, before it it too late.”
Fern, though, does stand there amazed.

Approaching through the night is a horse,
The one she’d seen before on her lawn,
The same knight is seated on its back,
Though now the pennant on his lance is torn.

The horse stops right next to Fern,
And caracoles to bring them face-to-face.
The knight lowers his lance to show his pennant,
Which Fern sees is a torn fragment of white lace.

The knight again does sit in stilly silence,
He waits, and does not make any demand.
Then lowers his lance to touch her nightdress’s hem,
When suddenly, Fern does understand.

The hem of her nightdress is lace trimmed,
So Fern bends, and seizes it in hand.
Then with a sharp tug she tears it off,
Removing it in a single strand.

The knight raises up his lance higher,
The old lace, from the lance, Fern does remove.
Then ties the furbelow on very tightly,
Saying, “Please take this favour with my love.”

The knight dips his lance in salute,
Then turns his horse, back down the road to face.
His spurs lightly touch the horse’s flanks,
Which straight away gallops off at pace.

Fern walks across to the keep.
The woman opens the main door wide.
Fern steps across the threshold,
And now, in her own house is inside.

She turns to look back across the lawn,
Which is still lit by the silver moon’s light.
The lawn is now smooth and unblemished,
With no marks caused by the steed of the knight.

Fern goes upstairs to her bedroom.
Has this all been a dream ere now?
Then, as she gets back into bed,
She sees her nightdress lacks its furbelow.

Fern remembers her nightdress has a pocket,
And into it, her hand she does place,
Then, to her utter amazement,
She pulls out a fragment of torn lace.

Fern wonders at what’s just happened,
Was it real, or only in her mind?
If it was just her imagination,
Why has she been able, the fragment to find?

Eventually Fern drifts off to sleep,
Waking with the chorus of the dawn.
Although she doesn’t think she has changed,
She no longer feels quite so forlorn.

“Why does the knight appear to me?
Why has he only come at night?
Is he trying to find out if he’s wanted?
Is he trying to make something right?”

Later on that day Fern walks to town,
And heads for the library to find,
If there are any references to knights
That might help to ease her troubled mind.

Fern does find a story of a knight,
Who had a moon device on his shield.
He was very brave in the fight,
And to a foe would never yield.

He had been commissioned to take a message,
To a lord, by order of the king.
It was to be delivered urgently,
And he was not to stop for anything.

He was nearly there when something happened.
By the side of the highway lay a maid.
Being a chivalrous knight, he should have stopped,
Instead, he carried on, not giving aid.

He delivered the message to the lord,
And later was seated, drinking in the hall,
When there entered in some serving men,
Carrying on their shoulders a shrouded pall.

They lay down their burden on the floor,
And without having said a word,
Reverently uncovered the face of a body.
It was the lady of the lord.

Then entered in another knight,
Who stepped up to the lord, and said,
“On our way here, we found your lady.
She was wounded, and now, alas, she’s dead.”

The other knight continued with his story,
“Seemingly, she had been robbed and *****.
There was no sign of the perpetrators,
We think they’d been disturbed, and then escaped.”

“Perhaps if we had managed to come sooner,
We might have been there to prevent this crime.
However, it seems the Fates conspired against us,
So we were not there to help in time.”

The Knight of the Moon sat there horror-struck,
He knew if he’d not been so keen to arrive,
Though helped, as his conscience had dictated,
The lady might yet even be alive.

Instead of speaking up, he stayed silent,
And never about this matter spoke a word.
Then he rose, and gave his condolence,
And went out from the presence of the lord.

The lady was removed to lie in state,
The Knight of the Moon went, to look at her face.
He knelt there in silent prayer awhile,
Then, from her dress, removed a length of lace.

He accoutred himself in his full armour,
Then rode from the keep that very night.
He left a note, stating his omission,
And of him, no-one ever saw a sight.

Fern is very sad to read this story.
What had then been in the knight’s mind?
Had he ridden off to end his disgrace,
Or the perpetrators, gone to find?

Fern now makes her thoughtful way home,
Hoping he’d found surcease from his torment,
Wondering what to him had befallen,
And if, for his lapse, he’d made atonement.

Fern reaches home rather tired,
So lies down on her bed, then falls asleep.
She dreams of knights in armour and fair damsels,
And jousting in the grounds of the keep.

Eventually, Fern wakens from her slumber.
She lies for a moment in her bed.
Yet again she thinks about her dream.
Was it real, or made up in her head.

“Perhaps,” she thinks, “I’m just on the rebound,
Because I’m still in mourning for my love.
And being of a romantic nature,
Dreaming of knights this does this prove.”

“Knights should have been chivalrous and kind,
Treating damsels in distress with care.
Except, when a knight I truly needed,
As it happened, there was not one there.”

“On that night, if we’d had some help,
My husband might still be alive.
Now, he has been taken from me,
And I feel that alone I cannot thrive.”

“However, life must go on as usual,
I should carry on, if just for him,
And so, perhaps, I should cease this moping,
And try to get on with my life again.”

So Fern gets up, refreshed from her nap,
Then decides, after eating, to go out.
That she must now get herself together,
Fern is not left in any doubt.

“Perhaps a short drive into the country,
And to stretch my legs, a gentle walk.
However, I will get on much quicker,
If I do not, to myself, talk.”

Fern puts on her coat and gets her bag,
Then goes out and walks to her car.
This is the first time that she’s driven
Since losing him, so she’ll not go too far.

Fern unlocks her car, and sits inside,
Then she is overcome with fear.
“Suppose, now, I am too scared to drive.
Perhaps I’d feel better if help was near.”

“Come on Fern, pull yourself together!
Feel the fear and do it anyway!
If you don’t do it now, then when?
Start the car, and let’s be on our way.”

So having given herself a little lecture,
Fern belts up, and pulls out of her drive.
Then, not really knowing where she’s headed,
Off she goes to see where she’ll arrive.

Fern motors out into the country,
And following a lane, drives up a hill.
At the top she parks and gets out.
Everything seems peaceful and so still.

She aimlessly ambles round the hill top,
And reads a notice saying it was a fort.
Then, Fern drifts off into a daydream,
And views the panorama without thought.

In her mind’s eye she sees a castle,
Decorated with many banners bright.
A tournament seems to be in progress,
And the winner is, of course, her moonlit knight.

Eventually, Fern becomes aware,
That she has gone some distance from her car.
So she slowly makes her way back to it.
She hadn’t meant to walk quite so far.

The shades of night are now falling fast,
And everything is starting to look grey.
So Fern unlocks her car and gets inside,
Ready to be getting on her way.

Slowly, she starts off down the hill,
The lane is very narrow with high hedges,
The moon is hidden behind some lowering clouds,
The track’s overgrown with grass and sedges.

Somehow, she’s gone a different way.
In the dark, everything seems wrong.
Fern is now starting to get worried,
And wonders why the track seems so long.

Eventually, she debouches onto a road,
Though she is not sure exactly where.
Fern is by now really anxious,
Then suddenly, gets an awful scare.

It looks just like the road they had been travelling,
When her husband lost control of the car.
It had skidded, spun and then rolled over,
The door had opened, and Fern had been flung far.

Her husband had still been trapped inside,
When it suddenly erupted into flame.
Fern could only stand and helplessly watch,
All the while loudly screaming his name.

No-one was around at that moment,
Perhaps someone might have pulled him out.
Then, as other motorists arrived,
They phoned for help, while listening to Fern shout.

Quite soon, a fire-engine came,
Closely followed by an ambulance.
The fire was eventually put out,
And Fern driven off still in a trance.

That had been several weeks ago,
And Fern has not since passed that place.
Now, it looks as if she is there,
And will, her darkest moment, have to face.

Then, to her horror, she sees a shape,
Dimly lit by her headlamps’ light.
It is a fallen motorcycle,
And the rider’s lying by it, just in sight.

Fern stops her car, and runs up to him.
Perhaps she can be of some aid.
As she approaches, the man gets up,
While a voice behind her says, “Don’t be afraid.”

“You just do exactly as we tell you.
We only want your money, and some fun.
Then, you can be on your way.
Do not even think of trying to run.”

The first man picks up the bike,
And pushes it to the road’s side.
The other man comes up close to Fern,
Who wonders again what might betide.

The wind blows the clouds across the sky,
Bringing the bright moon into sight.
The road that ’til then was hidden in darkness,
Is now lit with shards of silver light.

Fern then hears the sound of a horse,
Approaching through the wild and windy night.
The jingling of trappings can be heard,
And Fern thinks that now all will be right.

The courser slowly comes into view,
With the same knight seated on its back.
His lance is not couched, it’s held *****,
And the reins are loosely held, and quite slack.

Casually the steed comes to a stop,
And lowers his head to nibble at some grass.
The men, uncertain, both watch the knight,
While each wonders what might now pass.

One of them goes up to the bike,
And opens up the box on the back,
Then takes from it two crash helmets,
And a length of chain, which dangles slack.

He throws a helmet to his crony,
And they each fasten one upon their head.
Then they both turn to face the knight,
Who has not a word utteréd.

The one with the chain lifts it up,
And menacingly starts to whirl it around,
Then slowly walks towards the knight,
Who casually sits, not giving ground.

The other man reaches into his pocket,
Pulling out a wicked flick-knife,
And then, letting the blade spring open,
Prepares to join in with the strife.

He circles round the knight to the rear,
As the other man comes in from the side,
When the knight drops his lance into rest,
And suddenly, off he does ride.

He charges away from the men,
And gallops right past Fern at full speed.
Then, his lance aimed at the motorcycle,
He urges on his racing steed.

The lance pierces into the fuel tank,
And knocks the bike over in the road.
Petrol gushes out in a torrent,
And soon over the tarmac it has flowed.

The lance is broken in twain, the knight drops it,
And very quickly turns his horse about,
Then as he gallops back past the bike,
Both of the men start to shout.

Sparks from the horse’s hoofs come flying,
Igniting the petrol on the road.
Fern gives a shrill scream in panic,
Thinking that the bike might now explode.

The man with the chain wildly flails it,
Desperately trying to hit the horse’s head.
The knight strikes the man with a morning-star,
Who drops down, just like one who’s dead.

The knight then dismounts, drawing his sword,
And silently strides towards the other man,
Who flings away his knife, and starts running,
Fleeing just as fast as ever he can.

Fern sees the fallen man get up,
Rising groggily to stagger to his feet.
He looks at them, and then he turns away,
Slowly stumbling off, not yet too fleet.

Suddenly, the night becomes quite dark.
Clouds again, do the moon obscure.
Fern turns to try to thank the knight.
He’s gone, though she now feels secure.

Confidently she walks towards the bike,
And sees the lance by the fire’s light.
Fern bends and unties the lace from the lance,
And slowly walks back with it through the night.

She reaches her car, and gets inside,
Then starts driving off to get back home.
Belatedly thinking of her husband,
And wondering what next to her will come.

Safely arriving home, Fern parks the car,
And getting out, she sees on the lawn,
A pavilion has there been erected,
Turned rosaceous by the coming dawn.

The horse is also there, grazing tackless,
And by the entrance hangs a well-known targe.
Fern carefully goes and looks inside.
The pavilion’s quite small, not very large.

She sees the knight, kneeling on the ground,
His head bowed, as like one in prayer.
He holds his sword in front, just like a cross,
Of her, he seems not to be aware.

Quietly, Fern withdraws from the pavilion,
Then thinks, of the horse, to get a sight.
It’s nowhere to be seen, she turns around,
The pavilion’s now bathed in golden light.

As Fern stares at it in wonder,
See thinks that she can hear an ætherial sound,
Like a choir of heavenly angels singing,
And the pavilion vanishes from the ground.

Fern sees only a sword, stuck in the lawn,
And hanging from a nearby tree, the shield.
Then reliving what occurred in the night,
To tears of relief, Fern does yield.

She wonders if the knight has been translated,
Having now atoned for his mistake,
And Fern hopes that he’s managed to find peace,
For risking his life for her sake.

Fern hangs the sword above her bed,
And fastens the shield over her door.
She feels much more confidant now,
And is able to do so much more.

Sometimes though, when the moon is full,
Fern goes outside at midnight,
Carrying in her hand a strip of lace,
And seems just to vanish from sight.

At that time, if anyone was around,
They might then hear an unusual sound,
As though a fully accoutred
Nigel Morgan Aug 2013
It always intrigued him how a group of people entering a room for the first time made decisions about where to sit. He stood quietly by a window to give the impression that he was looking out on a wilderness of garden that fell steeply away to a barrier of trees. But he was looking at them, all fifteen of them taking in their clothes, their movements, their manners, their voices (and the not-voices of the inevitably silent ones), their bags and computers. One of them approached him and, he smiling broadly and kindly, put his hand up as a signal as if to say ‘not just now, not yet, don’t worry’, or something like that.

This smile seemed to work, and he thought suddenly of the woman he loved saying ‘you have such a lovely smile; the lines around your eyes crinkle sweetly when you smile.’ And he was warmed by the thought of her dear nature and saw, as in a photo playing across his nervous mind, the whole of her lying on the daisied grass when, as ‘just’ lovers, they had visited this place for an opening, when he could hardly stop looking at her, always touching her gently in wonder at her particular beauty. In the garden they had read together from Alice Oswald’s Dart, the river itself just a short walk away . . .

Listen,
a
lark
spinning
around
one
note
splitting
and
mending
­it

As he finally turned towards his class and walked to a table in front of the long chalkboard, half a dozen hands went up. He had to do the smile again and use both hands, a damping down motion, to suggest this what not the time for questions – yet. He gathered his notebook and went to the grand piano. He leafed through his book, thick, blue spiral-bound with squared paper, and, imagining himself as Mitsuko Uchida starting Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto, fingers placed on the keys and then leaning his body forward to play just a single chord. He held the chord down a long time until the resonance had died away.

‘That’s my daily chord’, he said, ‘Now write yours.’

Again, more hands went up. He ignored them. He gave them a few minutes, before gesturing to a young woman at the back to come and play her chord. Beside the piano was a small table with a sheet of manuscript paper and a Post-It sticker that said, ‘Please write your chord and your name here’. And, having played her chord, she wrote out her chord and name – beautifully.

He knelt on the floor beside a young man (they were all young) at the front of the class. He liked to kneel when teaching, so he was the same height, or lower, as the person he as addressing. It was perhaps an affectation, but he did it never the less.

‘Tell me about that chord,’ he said, ‘A description please’.
‘I need to hear it again.’
‘OK’, there was a slight pause, ‘now let’s hear yours.’
‘I haven’t written one’, the reply had a slightly aggressive edge, a ‘why are you embarrassing me?’ edge.
‘OK’, he said gently, and waved an invitation to the girl next to him. She had no trouble in doing what was asked.

Next, he asked a tall, dark young man how many notes he had in his chord, and receiving the answer four, asked if he, the young man, would chose four voices to sing it. This proved rather controversial, but oh so revealing – as he knew it would be. Could these composers sing? It would appear not. There was a lot of uncertainty about how it could be done. Might they sound the notes out at the piano before singing (he had shaken his head vigorously)? But when they did, indeed performed it well and with conviction, he congratulated them warmly.

‘Hand your ‘chord’ to the person next to you on your right. Now add a second chord to the chord you have in front of you please.’

Several minutes later, the task done, he asked them to pass the chords back to their original owners. And so he continued adding fresh requirements and challenges. – score the chords for string quartet, for woodwind quartet (alto-flute, cor anglais, horn, baritone saxophone – ‘transposition hell !’ said one student), write the chords as jazz chord symbols, in tablature for guitar, with the correct pedal positions for harp.

Forty minutes later he felt he was gathering what he needed to know about this very disparate group of people. There were some, just a few, who refused to enter into the exercise. One slight girl with glasses and a blank face attempted to challenge him as to why such a meaningless exercise was being undertaken. She would have no part in it – and left the room. He simply said, ‘May I have your chord please?’ and, to his surprise, she agreed, and with some grace went to the table by the piano and wrote it out.

A blond Norwegian student said ‘May we discuss what we are doing? I am here to learn Advanced Composition. This does not seem to be Advanced Composition.’

‘Gladly’, he said, ‘in ten minutes when this exercise is concluded, and we have taken a short break.’ And so the exercise was concluded, and he said, ‘Let’s take 15 minutes break. Please leave your chords on the desk in front of you.’

With that announcement almost everyone got out their mobile phones, some leaving the room. He opened the windows on what now promised to be a warm, sunny day. He went then to each desk and photographed each chord sheet, to the surprise and amusement of those who had remained in the room. One declined to give him permission to do so. He shrugged his shoulders and went on to the next table. He could imagine something of the conversation outside. He’d been here before. He’d had students make formal complaints about ‘his methods’, how these approaches to ‘self-learning’ were degrading and embarrassing, belittling even. I’m still teaching he thought after 30 years, so there must be something in it. But he had witnessed in those thirty years a significant decline in musical techniques, much of which he laid at the feet of computer technology. He thought of this kind of group as a drawing class, doing something that was once common in art school, facing that empty page every morning, learning to make a mark and stand by it. He had asked for a chord, and as he looked at the results, played them in his head. Some had just written a text-book major chord, others something wildly impossible to hear, but just some revealed themselves as composers writing chords that demonstrated purpose and care. Though he could tell most of them didn’t get it, they would. By the end of the week they’d be writing chords like there was no tomorrow, beautiful, surprising, wholly inspiring, challenging, better chords than he would ever write. Now he had to help them towards that end, to help them understand that to be an  ‘advanced composer’ might be likened to being an ‘advanced motorist’ (he recalled from his childhood the little badges drivers once put proudly on their bumpers – when there were such things – now there’s a windscreen sticker). To become an advanced motorist meant learning to be continually aware of other motorists, the state of the road, what your own vehicle was doing, constantly looking and thinking ahead, refining the way you approached a roundabout, pulled up at a junction. He liked the idea of transferring that to music.

What he found disturbing was that there were a body of students who believed that a learning engagement with a professional composer, someone who made his living, sustained his life with his artistic practice, had to be a confrontation. The why preceded, and almost obliterated, the how.

In the discussion that followed the break this became all too clear. He let them speak, and hardly had to answer or intervene because almost immediately student countered student. There evolved an intriguing analysis of what the class had entered into, which he summarised on a flip chart. He knew he had some supporters, people who clearly realised something of the worth and interest of the exercises. He also had a number of detractors, some holding quasi-political agendas about ‘what composition was’. After 20 minutes or so he intervened and attempted a conclusion.

‘The first rule of teaching is to understand and be sympathetic to a student’s past experience and thus to their learning needs, which in almost every situation will be different and various. This means for a teacher holding to an idea of what might, in this case, constitute ‘an advanced composer’. I hold to such an idea. I’ve thought about this ‘idea’ quite deeply and my aim is to provide learning opportunities to let as many of you as possible be enriched by that idea. You are all composers, but there is no consensus about what being a composer is, what the ‘practice of composition’ is. There used to be, probably until the 1970s, but that is no more. ‘

‘You may think I was disrespectful in not wishing to engage in any debate from the outset. I had to find a way to understand your experience and your learning needs. In 40 minutes I learnt a great deal. My desire is that you all go away from each session knowing you have stretched your practice as composers, through some of the skills and activities that make up such a practice. You all know what they are, but I intend to add to these by taking excursions into other creative practices that I have studied and myself been enriched by. I also want to stretch you intellectually – as some of my teachers stretched me, and whose example still runs through all I do.

Over the next seven days you are to compose music for a remarkable ensemble of professional musicians. I see myself as helping you (if necessary) towards that goal, by setting up situations that may act as a critical net in which to catch any problems and difficulties. I know we are going to fight a little over some of my suggestions, the use of computer notation I’m sure will be one, but I have my reasons, and such reasons contribute towards what I see as you all developing a holistic view of composing music as both a skill and an art form. I also happen to believe, as Imogen Holst once said of Benjamin Britten, that composing music is a way of life . . .

With that he walked to the window and looked out across that wilderness of green now bathed in sunshine. He felt a presence by his shoulder. Turning he suddenly recognised standing before him a young man, bearded now, and yes, he knew who he was. At a symposium in Birmingham the previous summer he had talked warmly and openly to this composer and jazz pianist in a break between sessions, and just a few weeks previously in London after a concert this young man had approached him with a warm greeting. Empathy flowed between them and he was grateful as he shook his hand that this could be. She had been with him at that concert and he remembered afterwards trying to recall his name for her and where they’d met. She was holding his arm as they walked down Exhibition Road to their hotel and he was so full of her presence and her beauty no wonder his memory had failed him.

‘Brilliant,’ the young man said, ‘Thank you. Just so much to think about.’

And he could say nothing, suddenly exhausted by it all.
Ashwin Kumar Jul 2017
All days may not start well
Things may not go to plan
Punctuality monsoon will tell
Start as early as you can
But not always in our hands
Things at the mercy of rain
Is there any place to stand?
In a Mumbai fast local train?
More so when it is late
Leaving you at the hands of fate
Men push, jostle and bicker
Place to stand is a premium
At your expense, they snicker
For a while, it’s pandemonium
To and fro, back and forth
Swung for all your worth
Then the train stops when it shouldn’t
Getting further late when it shouldn’t
When time comes to alight
You are expected to defy gravity
Jumping a moving train with no clarity
Changing over at Dadar is no delight
Later greeted by grime and muck
Rain at Lower Parel adds to bad luck
Noisy motorists on a narrow street
Make your mind admit defeat
Reaching office is a relief
Your sweat beggars belief
Just the start of a long day ahead
A miracle not to lose your head
A poem about the vagaries of commuting in Mumbai local trains during the monsoon
Pearson Bolt Nov 2016
i’ve long dreamt
of black flags in the streets
tonight i marched beneath
the shadow of their wings

shoulder-to-shoulder
in hope and solidarity
an anarchist professor
with a climate change activist
an independent journalist
and one of my students

as mid-November winds tugged
at her pink-and-brunette hair
she lifted a hand-drawn sign
of a gigantic sneaker
smashing a ****
and i felt
for not the first time
an enormous sense of pride

how humbling to at once
inspire and be inspired by
an eighteen-year-old
punk and artist
who asked to borrow
The Moral Imperative of Revolt
two scant months ago
then took to the streets
to oppose and depose
a twisted fascist virtuoso

for two whole hours
we hundreds owned the streets
we marched down Rosalind
Central and Orange Avenue
as protest slogans rang angelic
we raised hell and found heaven
in liberty equality and solidarity

but then the pigs closed in
cordoned to Lake Eola
to scream acquiescent rhetoric
at the fish sleeping
blissful in their innocence
beneath the jet black surface

a half-dozen cops in riot gear
astride horses loomed
ominous before us
backlit by the headlights
of the aggravated motorists
our march had forestalled

as the people abandoned the streets
we’d won so easily
i felt my chest wilt beneath
the weight of forsaken opportunity
my eyes scanned the remaining crowd

four stood strong
rooted to the concrete
by the world's weight
anchored by conviction
an anarchist professor
an independent journalist
a climate change activist
and a freshman college student

i heard the professor whisper to his student
i heard him say she'd put herself in harm’s way
that they'd lost the day when the marchers
turned their backs and walked away
but she didn’t flinch or move an inch
she stood silent and vigilant
shoulder-to-shoulder
chin held almost as high
as her ****-smashing protest sign
and her matching *******

and in that moment
i could’ve died
smiling
This poem is not about me. Quite the contrary, this poem is about my brave student. An absolute champion.
I imagine, this is what I’ll trademark
The impossibly early morning commute
I’m still drunk
It’s 6AM
And I’m still wearing my shoes

My phone sings with an urgency
It ferries the exhausting burden of responsibility

It’s 6AM
I’ll keep reminding you
Or myself
Because I have to

sigh

****

I have to make The Commute

6am

My body hangs from my brain
In a disjointed way
A detached manner
Like a consciousness manifesting through a coma

If I could forge the willpower
Gather some strength in my arm
To push my phone off of the desk
And silence the alarm

I’ll regret it in some way
Not even a second thought considered
It wasn’t even a hard decision

7:20am

As I inhale, and sigh
For maybe the seventh time
I’m suddenly aware
That in this very moment, I’m being held prisoner
I’m being forced to make a choice
I’m being forced to consider

My mind is awash in the buzz of last night
And the fade of this morning

Austere
Varying shades of whites & greys
Ohio in December
Ohio, the way I’ll remember

This is bleak
Wearing all of my previous evening
Inside and out
I feel like sandpaper
I smell like 3am
Friday night
Saturday morning
It’s Monday morning
And its a dreary 7:30

7:32am

I’m wearing this to work
This is how well I wear exhaustion
I’ll flaunt it in a professional setting
In a professional manner
A white collar show & tell

I’ll groom the bare minimum
But I MUST shave my face
Just to save face
So it doesn’t look like I have a drinking problem
Because I don’t
I just like to party

I treat my body like a machine
It’s regarded like a car I can’t afford to keep gas in
But I can afford to drive to New York at night and explore

A special kind of neglect

7:35 am

A single apple
A bowl of cereal
A bag of chips
Some energy to pursue The Commute

Literally, running on fumes
Literally, every morning
Between 6am to 1pm
Literally, running late
Everyday

Responsible living escapes me

7:41am

GO! GO! GO!
I hit the basement
I braced my knees
I covered my hands
Adjusted to bike the streets

Covered in gear
Drunk and exhausted
The idea of just staying here
Is so attractive and real

I can ******* doggedness
I can still taste the air in my bedroom
While I’m in the basement
I can also taste….unemployment
So, I go.

7:45am

Bleak
Varying shades of whites & greys
Ohio in January
Ohio, all the time really
Atleast it has the feeling
Biking in the elements

The air I breath stings something awful
In my chest
Ice cubes
In my breath
Snowflakes

The blue collar effort
Two feet of snow
And its still coming
This workout//THE COMMUTE
For a white collar job
Dealing with billing disputes
The upkeep of my finacial cause

I’m a pest
The snow is deep
Almost up to my knees
I’m a menace
I’m an obstacle among perpetual obstacles
And we’re all just trying to avoid each other

MARKET//MAIN ST.

As I start to pick up speed
My body begins to adjust
My senses waken up
And narrowly avoid
This, assaulting Mack truck
Speeding on a 10speed
Down the wrong side of the street

Whoops.

I’ve got no choice really
I can’t see or hear what’s behind me
Behind my own panting
And Kendrick Lamar’s ranting
So down the opposite side of the road I go
Around Mack truck smoke & mounds of snow

I reach the edge of the street
And depending on the day of the week
And how generous those patrons are, of St V
I could exercise the sidewalk

No such luck,
So, **** it
I’ll fight traffic
I’ll keep to the streets
And dogde the fleets

This is the real challenge
This is the adventure…
Side to side with traffic
Hand in hand with danger

Car horns & headlights
This lifestyle might really **** me

7:42am
Oh, hey look
Another *******
Middle aged driver
Righteous anger
Righteous motorist

STOP!
It was on Old Main St.
At 7:47am
I was almost on the news
This is a stanza of dediction to the man in the grey Toyota
I’ve developed wonderful instincts
I almost died
This man sped through the incorrect traffic light

So I stopped!
Or else I would’ve been on the news
At roughly 8:38am
Vehicular manslaughter would probably be the charge
Probably a hit and run
I would not have stopped either
I’m this ******* in the middle of the street
On a bike
I’m an early morning, urban menace

I hit the pavement

Desolate
Varying shades of whites & greys
Ohio in February
Ohio all the time really
Atleast it has the feeling
Sprawled, laying in the elements

My mind is awash in the buzz of the night
Before
And the fade of this morning

*******!
I’m shouting now
On the ground, at the sky
In the snow, to the ice
At these ******* motorists, at my ******* bike
A special kind of entitlement

I was born in the wrong state, in the wrong place

I hit the pavement
I skinned my knees
And scraped my hands
Numb & exhausted
The idea of just laying here & giving up is so attractive and real
But I can’t…because bill$

I treat my body like a machine
I regard it like a toy I can’t put down
Even if I choose
If afforded the chance, I wouldn’t know what to do

Dreary
Varying shades of whites and greys
Ohio in March
I won’t even ******* start

8:01am

I show up to work
Half drunk and overworked
Sleet and snowy down my side
And rehearse this white collar ritual
After my blue collar effort
I’m so ******* tired

Living on the edge has this embrace
Like something most people couldn’t stomach
Most people aren’t built for it
Most people aren’t meant to

Don’t take this as a challenge, gentle tweeter
Or take it as one
I’m not saying it can’t be done
I accomplish this, twice a day, four in a row, and roughly an odd fifth one.
Mike Hauser Mar 2013
After dining at the finest of Maw and Paw restaurants
Frequented by men in trucks
Outside I slipped on the gravel drive
And as would be my luck

The LARGE cowboy belt I'm so proud of
Latched on and then got stuck
Now I'm off to see America
From the front grill of a Big Mac Truck

From the plains of Plano, Texas
To the hills of Hoboken Plantation, Tennessee
There's not to many places
That Big Mac Truck did not take me

To other motorists I was Mr. Friendly
With my arms flapping in the wind
They all would honk and wave and smile
As I smiled back with my bug filled grin

For weeks and weeks we went from coast to coast
Hollywood, California is where I made my mark
Someone happened to take my picture
Which made me an instant star

So I hooked my buckle to the front of a limo
As crowds started to recognize me
A Big Mac Truck would no longer do
When your a Big Time Celebrity

I was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
He interviewed me from a parking lot
The limo would not fit on the couch
Plus I can't get the buckle to unlock

Now when my limo pulls up to crosswalks
Pedestrians ask for my autograph
Before the light turns green and me and the bumper we  leave
I tell a few jokes and we share a few laughs

As life's fortunes would have it
I can't believe my luck
The day I tripped on that gravel drive
And fell into the grill of that Big Mac Truck
Madelin Mar 2013
First, if I am comatose for a while pre-death, don't let them call me a fighter.
I'm probably not fighting it.
It's probably the first time I've been able to relax in a decade.

Second, keep my death off the internet.
Tell my friends of my demise with handwritten notes delivered by white-gloved butlers with somber expressions.
Tell my enemies by sitting on their chests and poking them in the forehead repeatedly until they guess how it happened. It shouldn't take long.

Third, my friends from high school will immediately try to design stickers for their car windows with my name on them and a graphic of dance shoes or track shoes or my college mascot.
You are not to allow this.
A sticker denoting the death of a loved one will not keep fellow motorists from noticing that my friends from high school **** at driving.

Not permitted at the funeral:
Gerber daisies
poetry
blue jeans
any ex-boyfriend I refer to by something other than their name (i.e. "the fat hipster I used to hang out with.")

Encouraged at the funeral:
Hugs - everyone must hug
lots of appropriately sad, yet tasteful songs sung by my musically-minded loved ones (may I suggest "In Light of Time" by Phillip E. Silvey?)
And make sure they bury me in the blue dress.

Last, for every story they tell about me where I was kind or selfless or funny or caring,
make sure someone also tells the story where I got too drunk at a frat house and made out with a kid from upstate New York and then spent four hours passed out and/or puking on the floor of the communal bathroom in Ashley's building,
or the one where I punched Savannah in third grade,
or the one where I rolled a car for no particular reason.

Remember me as I was.
Lexander J Jun 2016
By the time he got out of the front door the morning sun had fully risen. Surrounding it lay a sea of blue sky, light coloured and peppered here and there with trails of white left from distant airplanes. The birds sang in the trees, all in harmony, and a light breeze whispered, left over from the night before.

As he jumped into his car, a dusty red little Citroën, he realised that in his rushed efforts to get ready he'd put his shoes on the wrong feet. A little while ago he'd seen a documentary based on people with abnormal deformities, and there had been an American 30-something year old with two right feet. Right now, looking at his shoes, he looked a little like him; all he needed now was a group of cameras and a well-spoken, polished presenter pretending to care but really just thinking about the paycheck at the end of night. He figured all TV presenters were pretentious, fixated on climbing up the great showbiz ladder rather than helping those in need.

He grabbed them off, scuffed black business shoes to match his tattered jeans and faded blue shirt, and swapped them over. Once both shoes were on correct, he lit up a smoke and set off down the road.

Ahead of him was Lancaster Road, a sprawling stretch of asphalt tarmac that served as the primary mode of navigation through Manchester. If you were to turn left it would take you all the way into the main city, and also a stodge of backed-up traffic, and, if you chose right, to the quiet town of Penitence which was where his works was based. Going right would technically be quicker, as the road to the left led to a series of zig zag-like curves where the road layout had been forced to compensate for the huge cliff several miles to the north. That being said, Will almost always chose left, as the dual carriageway that branched off Lancaster Road was always jammed up with traffic, comprising mainly of angry motorists and haulage lorries driving in from the east. Choosing right would easily add three quarters of an hour onto his journey, and quite frankly he'd rather stare at a wall than be surrounded by blaspheming mouths and ugly red faces.

This time however he went right, joining the steady stream of cars that were already beginning to slow down. There was no apparent reason for this, for over 4 years he must have consistently turned left every morning, but today his mind had thrown a curveball - albeit a stupid one. Already running late, it had chosen to go on the longest route possible.

Good work there mate, brilliant.


50mph - 45mph - 40mph

The speedometer slowly crept down, the shudder of the lower gears gradually increasing. Clouds had now gathered in the sky, not quite bloated nor dark enough to threaten rain but it was enough to dull the sunshine into a pale, white, glow. He was now going slow enough to see the bits of clutter and ******* - discarded newspapers, cans, broken bottles - littering the pavement. Then it suddenly gave way to a rudimentary dirt road and steel crash barriers as he approached the dual carriageway.

35mph - 30mph - 25mph

Sighing, he fumbled for the radio and flicked it on, momentarily averting his gaze from the road to the numbered buttons, tuning for a station.

--- Ssssshhhh ---

Nothing but static.

**** radio! If only I could -

When he glanced up his heart nearly stopped - directly ahead of him, on the highway, stood a man. He stood with his back toward Wills car, shoulders slumped, stock still.

What-?!

Will froze as the car lurched on, the distance between the bonnet and the mans body rapidly closing. No thought came into his brain, his legs distant from his body as if untethered.

Nothing but numbness.

The future series of events played like a stop motion video inside his mind; finding the brakes and jamming them down - only too little, too late. The old man would first lean as the bumper pressed into his lower back, then snap sickeningly in half, the momentum of the car causing his body to jackhammer up the bonnet and roll over the back of the car. There he would fall once again onto the road, spine splintered and blood soaking through his shirt into a puddle on the tarmac.

STOP! Will stop the **** car!!!

He smashed the brakes down and closed his eyes.

Although the first thing taught in driving lessons is to never close your eyes, particularly during an emergency stop, the overwhelming panic threw his nerves into a spasm, and in that split second everything he was told - brake hard, clutch down, don't let the car stall - was forgotten in an instant. He knew what he should do, knew that if the wheels were even slightly turned he could cause the car to skid, or worse, flip.

Brake down, clutch down, engine off, a mantra his instructor had once sang on one of his first lessons. Will had a feeling that if Ruth Carotene could see him, see this, now she'd have some sort of coronary, or maybe an aneurysm. She'd always been set in her ways of teaching, starting each lesson going through her seemingly endless list of checkpoints, and this right here smashed every single rule she'd taught him.
Break, clutch, engine off -
Eyes, open your eyes
He did, the windscreen before him doubling for a second. His heart was pounding away, nervous sweat lining his forehead and arms. The car had stopped, and in his dumb paralysis he hadn't the faintest idea how much it had skid. Safe to say it hadn't flipped over though, unless he was upside down and didn't realise it.
Nope, the sky is still above me, he observed, and it was then he also saw the fat bald-headed guy rapping his hands against the drivers side window. The world washed back slowly, the sun white and the air filled wit beeps and the Ssssshhhhhh static of the radio. He lowered the window, allowing the honking horns to fully enter and consume the inside of the car.
"What the hell are you playing at? I nearly ran into the back of you!" the bald guy barked at him, his pudgy face both pale and angry. Will glanced in the rear view mirror and saw about a dozen or so more cars behind him, scowling faces and gesturing hands sending out messages far from morning greetings or amicable hello's.
"Sorry... There was someone in the road," he croaked, pointing to the blank space in front. Empty, nothing there.
Can't be, he was right there! Stood right there! For a second he thought the figure had been an apparition, or maybe hadn't been there all along, merely a figment of his tired mind. That's when his gaze shifted to the opposite side of the road and the mis-shapen entity clambering over the crash barrier. Whoever it was, they had crossed the road while Will had been in his daze, and it was now he could fully see it in it's ghastly glory.
"I must be ****** blind 'cause to me there ain't nobody there -"
Grotesque was the only word he could think of to describe it. Under the pallid glow of the sun its skin glistened sick-white, partially covered by a tattered grey t-shirt that billowed in the wind like torn flags. It wore shorts, also grey, it's long stick-like legs poking out like splintered tooth picks. And it's face, oh God that face. He only caught a vague view as it glanced over its shoulder, but what he saw reminded him of the ghouls that would creep out of the crypts, the nightmarish beings that stalked late night TV shows such as the Twilight Zone seeking fresh flesh to feast on. But it was human alright - it's normal, albeit disintegrating, clothing the only sign of its former non-twisted self.
Oh God -
"Hey, are you even listening? There ain't no one there *******!"
Will faced the guy, now stood so close his flabby face nearly poked through the window, and then back to the crash barrier. The fiend was gone, much to his relief.
"Sorry it must have been a bird or something, I'm really really sorry mate I thought it was a man, or a kid."
"Yeah yeah whatever, just get going and get out of my way." With that he stormed off, only stopping briefly to exchange disapproving looks with the car behind him. He drove a black sports-like car, probably a Vauxhall, and Will briefly wondered how such a small car could carry an overweight ******* like that.
*******, he muttered to himself as he restarted the engine. Turns out he'd let the car stall as well.
Back to school I guess, what would dear old Ruth say?
Setting off was easy, the fat guy overtook him almost instantly, slamming his horn as he went, but looking over to where the misfit had been was not. He wanted to look, to check in case it hadn't really gone away and was instead lurking, contorting it's swollen lips into a grin.
Grinning at him.
"Gooood evening listeners, this is RADIO XFM!"
Halfway down the radio finally clicked on, interrupting his line of thought - quite mercifully, if he was being honest. The sight of that thing not only made him feel uneasy, but he also couldn't shake off the feeling of foreboding as well. Like it was some sort of warning, a sign.
Of what?
[smashing glass smashing]
He didn't know, didn't dare to think, and as he cantered down the carriageway in the steady stream of traffic he sat silently, the radio singing out its tunes like an uninvited guest. It was an oldie that was on, maybe Boston or Bowie, he wasn't sure, but as it played on he sat in silence, the shadows in the car cutting harsh lines into his face.
John F McCullagh Jun 2013
Each day I drive the Belt to work
with a million other slobs.
We pilot cars a decade old.
We're lucky, we have jobs.
Being stuck in traffic is no fun
so my eyes search for distraction.
Your bumper- stickered Civic
offers motorists didaction.
You've no shortage of opinions,
you're a child of hope and change.
gay women for abortion rights?
forgive me, that seems strange.
You're all for education ,
and it seems you're down on God
Your promotion of vasectomy
strikes me as rather odd.
We creep along at walking speed
in the misnamed morning rush
I smile at one old sign that reads:
"Lesbians against Bush"
I change lanes and creep up beside
this most amusing creature.
Shock and awe is what I felt-
She is our children's teacher!
alternate title "A Woman with Much on her Mind"
Nigdaw Jun 2023
a rocky place to call home
metaphorically speaking
by the side of a road
among the detritus of motorists
thrown from car windows
as was he, just a core
from an apple in an unfinished
lunch box eaten on the way home
that somehow germinated
I call him, him because
it makes me comfortable
to give gender and character
build up some sort of empathy
in the winter a sad skeleton
silhouette against a slate sky
bur every spring blossoming
to produce apples for the birds
where no human would dare
wander unless broken down
I admire the consistency
of nature and the hope it brings
Lexander J Jun 2016
By the time he got out of the front door the morning sun had fully risen. Surrounding it lay a sea of blue sky, light coloured and peppered here and there with trails of white left from distant airplanes. The birds sang in the trees, all in harmony, and a light breeze whispered, left over from the night before.

As he jumped into his car, a dusty red little Citroën, he realised that in his rushed efforts to get ready he'd put his shoes on the wrong feet. A little while ago he'd seen a documentary based on people with abnormal deformities, and there had been an American 30-something year old with two right feet. Right now, looking at his shoes, he looked a little like him; all he needed now was a group of cameras and a well-spoken, polished presenter pretending to care but really just thinking about the paycheck at the end of night. He figured all TV presenters were pretentious, fixated on climbing up the great showbiz ladder rather than helping those in need.

He grabbed them off, scuffed black business shoes to match his tattered jeans and faded blue shirt, and swapped them over. Once both shoes were on correct, he lit up a smoke and set off down the road.

Ahead of him was Lancaster Road, a sprawling stretch of asphalt tarmac that served as the primary mode of navigation through Manchester. If you were to turn left it would take you all the way into the main city, and also a stodge of backed-up traffic, and, if you chose right, to the quiet town of Penitence which was where his works was based. Going right would technically be quicker, as the road to the left led to a series of zig zag-like curves where the road layout had been forced to compensate for the huge cliff several miles to the north. That being said, Will almost always chose left, as the dual carriageway that branched off Lancaster Road was always jammed up with traffic, comprising mainly of angry motorists and haulage lorries driving in from the east. Choosing right would easily add three quarters of an hour onto his journey, and quite frankly he'd rather stare at a wall than be surrounded by blaspheming mouths and ugly red faces.

This time however he went right, joining the steady stream of cars that were already beginning to slow down. There was no apparent reason for this, for over 4 years he must have consistently turned left every morning, but today his mind had thrown a curveball - albeit a stupid one. Already running late, it had chosen to go on the longest route possible.

Good work there mate, brilliant.


50mph - 45mph - 40mph

The speedometer slowly crept down, the shudder of the lower gears gradually increasing. Clouds had now gathered in the sky, not quite bloated nor dark enough to threaten rain but it was enough to dull the sunshine into a pale, white, glow. He was now going slow enough to see the bits of clutter and ******* - discarded newspapers, cans, broken bottles - littering the pavement. Then it suddenly gave way to a rudimentary dirt road and steel crash barriers as he approached the dual carriageway.

35mph - 30mph - 25mph

Sighing, he fumbled for the radio and flicked it on, momentarily averting his gaze from the road to the numbered buttons, tuning for a station.

--- Ssssshhhh ---

Nothing but static.

**** radio! If only I could -

When he glanced up his heart nearly stopped - directly ahead of him, on the highway, stood a man. He stood with his back toward Wills car, shoulders slumped, stock still.

What-?!

Will froze as the car lurched on, the distance between the bonnet and the mans body rapidly closing. No thought came into his brain, his legs distant from his body as if untethered.

Nothing but numbness.

The future series of events played like a stop motion video inside his mind; finding the brakes and jamming them down - only too little, too late. The old man would first lean as the bumper pressed into his lower back, then snap sickeningly in half, the momentum of the car causing his body to jackhammer up the bonnet and roll over the back of the car. There he would fall once again onto the road, spine splintered and blood soaking through his shirt into a puddle on the tarmac.

STOP! Will stop the **** car!!!

He smashed the brakes down and closed his eyes.

Although the first thing taught in driving lessons is to never close your eyes, particularly during an emergency stop, the overwhelming panic threw his nerves into a spasm, and in that split second everything he was told - brake hard, clutch down, don't let the car stall - was forgotten in an instant. He knew what he should do, knew that if the wheels were even slightly turned he could cause the car to skid, or worse, flip.

Brake down, clutch down, engine off, a mantra his instructor had once sang on one of his first lessons. Will had a feeling that if Ruth Carotene could see him, see this, now she'd have some sort of coronary, or maybe an aneurysm. She'd always been set in her ways of teaching, starting each lesson going through her seemingly endless list of checkpoints, and this right here smashed every single rule she'd taught him.
Break, clutch, engine off -
Eyes, open your eyes
He did, the windscreen before him doubling for a second. His heart was pounding away, nervous sweat lining his forehead and arms. The car had stopped, and in his dumb paralysis he hadn't the faintest idea how much it had skid. Safe to say it hadn't flipped over though, unless he was upside down and didn't realise it.
Nope, the sky is still above me, he observed, and it was then he also saw the fat bald-headed guy rapping his hands against the drivers side window. The world washed back slowly, the sun white and the air filled wit beeps and the Ssssshhhhhh static of the radio. He lowered the window, allowing the honking horns to fully enter and consume the inside of the car.
"What the hell are you playing at? I nearly ran into the back of you!" the bald guy barked at him, his pudgy face both pale and angry. Will glanced in the rear view mirror and saw about a dozen or so more cars behind him, scowling faces and gesturing hands sending out messages far from morning greetings or amicable hello's.
"Sorry... There was someone in the road," he croaked, pointing to the blank space in front. Empty, nothing there.
Can't be, he was right there! Stood right there! For a second he thought the figure had been an apparition, or maybe hadn't been there all along, merely a figment of his tired mind. That's when his gaze shifted to the opposite side of the road and the mis-shapen entity clambering over the crash barrier. Whoever it was, they had crossed the road while Will had been in his daze, and it was now he could fully see it in it's ghastly glory.
"I must be ****** blind 'cause to me there ain't nobody there -"
Grotesque was the only word he could think of to describe it. Under the pallid glow of the sun its skin glistened sick-white, partially covered by a tattered grey t-shirt that billowed in the wind like torn flags. It wore shorts, also grey, it's long stick-like legs poking out like splintered tooth picks. And it's face, oh God that face. He only caught a vague view as it glanced over its shoulder, but what he saw reminded him of the ghouls that would creep out of the crypts, the nightmarish beings that stalked late night TV shows such as the Twilight Zone seeking fresh flesh to feast on. But it was human alright - it's normal, albeit disintegrating, clothing the only sign of its former non-twisted self.
Oh God -
"Hey, are you even listening? There ain't no one there *******!"
Will faced the guy, now stood so close his flabby face nearly poked through the window, and then back to the crash barrier. The fiend was gone, much to his relief.
"Sorry it must have been a bird or something, I'm really really sorry mate I thought it was a man, or a kid."
"Yeah yeah whatever, just get going and get out of my way." With that he stormed off, only stopping briefly to exchange disapproving looks with the car behind him. He drove a black sports-like car, probably a Vauxhall, and Will briefly wondered how such a small car could carry an overweight ******* like that.
*******, he muttered to himself as he restarted the engine. Turns out he'd let the car stall as well.
Back to school I guess, what would dear old Ruth say?
Setting off was easy, the fat guy overtook him almost instantly, slamming his horn as he went, but looking over to where the misfit had been was not. He wanted to look, to check in case it hadn't really gone away and was instead lurking, contorting it's swollen lips into a grin.
Grinning at him.
"Gooood evening listeners, this is RADIO XFM!"
Halfway down the radio finally clicked on, interrupting his line of thought - quite mercifully, if he was being honest. The sight of that thing not only made him feel uneasy, but he also couldn't shake off the feeling of foreboding as well. Like it was some sort of warning, a sign.
Of what?
[smashing glass smashing]
He didn't know, didn't dare to think, and as he cantered down the carriageway in the steady stream of traffic he sat silently, the radio singing out its tunes like an uninvited guest. It was an oldie that was on, maybe Boston or Bowie, he wasn't sure, but as it played on he sat in silence, the shadows in the car cutting harsh lines into his face.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2022
i shifted my preferences greatly, i've move away from a certain stimulant, namely? caffeine, i've abandoned it completely in the form of coffee, this one afternoon i reached my fourth cup having began drinking it in the morning: i felt like my brain was trying to jump out of my head through my forehead: a headache without a headache: strangely possible... i prefer nicotine these days: obviously i smoke less, in order to make this poison more potent, but it works just as well if not better than caffeine: since the first cigarette of the day, after a night's "fast" (i.e. sleep) gives you the disorientating buzz, whereby an awakening stimulation kicks-in...

Wennigton village near Rainham burned to the ground,
Socrates hated the sophists, Ezra Pound
hated the Taoists... me? i hate the sceptics...
pretentious thinking-they're-clever ***-wipes...
i hate the sceptics with a passion:
i don't mind scepticism: i just hate the sceptics...
i can be sceptical in a microcosm about a lot of things:
usually traffic: at a roundabout... whether or not
i will gave enough "boot-licking" strength in my feet
to make it... but scepticism soon dissipates
in me and i just: lunge into the traffic...

even with all the past news about idiotic junior doctors
who were pulled under trucks and died
because they thought cyclists were the Hindu sacred
cows of the traffic hierarchy...
i have a different approach: cyclists can make the best
traffic shepherds... literally...
i've had about 3 motorists shout at me from
their windows... gnats...
you think i didn't speed up to them and start shouting
back?
one good example... i think he was trying to impress
his girlfriend in the passenger-seat...
by the time i caught up with him
   she noticed i was mad as a boar who was fed
beetroots instead of truffles...
'come on *******! mouth off me one more
******* time! stop the car and have a fight!'
****... she already pulled up the window... so i cycled
even more ferociously until i passed them and
turned around and pulled out the middle-finger
weapon of mute expression that's easily to read
if you know what it means...

of all the motorists: there's always one ****-sure idiot:
who's probably popping erectile-dysfunction
pills to sooth his hurting ego...
ego... wow! on my bicycle today i was experiencing
something weird...
it was an IN-BODY experience...
my ego was having a conversation with my ego...
usually ego undermines...
when cycling: oh i can't go on i can't go on blah blah...
but this time round my ego was talking to my ego...
ego (a) was saying the above: that my body
can't take the strain...
but ego (b) was saying: shut the **** up...
this idiot decided to take this route: of all days...

my god! after so many years of drought... the heat-waves...
i went for lunch with my mother...
she drank a Stella Artois and had fish and chips
while i had a Guinness and a burger & chips...
we talked... oh... right... so this is what potentially
dating feels like? you go out with a woman
and talk over food?
                                thank god it was my mother:
i couldn't stomach doing with with a potential partner:
what a ****** cultural artifact of the 20th century...
**** that...
so you go to a restaurant and you talk over food...
in the meantime people do this while also
profiling themselves prior... their interests...
their dislikes... it's all a priori...
and then... it's like reading a menu...
                            you already know everything you'd
otherwise like to find out through
conversation and all the quirks of: conversation
but instead you have profiling: so you already know
what a person likes or dislikes...
can i just eat alone, in peace?
   sure... if my mother asks me to have lunch with her...
but we have seriously things to talk about...
her fathers death... my grandfather's death...
familial estrangement...
with her mother my grandmother:

i didn't know my paternal grandparents...
they abandoned my father so i abandoned a thought
of them...
they're like grey ghouls of a white night of
St. Petersburg... come the zenith of June's longest day...
but we talked an anchor-topic... a sinker...
i didn't just lose a grandfather: i lost a friend...
a tear built up in my eye: glass! glass! think of glass!
thank god: i didn't cry...
the word grandfather coupled with the word friend
is heartbreaking in the right context...

i was getting my root-canal treatment done
when i saw him last...
and then... one month later... gone...
what really hurt? that ***** of a grandmother didn't even
bother to call me to tell me something
was wrong... oh sure... she called me...
the day before he died...
i would have been at his bedside the moment
****-hit the fan...
    my hatred for women: my "hatred"? it sort of imploded...
it reversed itself...
hell... if you get a chance to hate your grandmother
for that sort of trickery... what are you going
to do? me? i just decided it was about time
to love prostitutes...
these creatures who are supposedly least deserving...
and? oh **** me: i'm having a ******* hell of a time
stealing kisses from them...

****'s sake: if someone is dying you tell people that
are your family!
no wonder i didn't think about having children
of my own: given my family's history:
it wouldn't look pretty...
i think there's a curse on my family lineage...
but sure: i can go on a lunch "date" with my mother...
there's nothing Oedipal about that...
is there?
                          i don't think so: if you think so you're (a)
weird... oh...
           but do the same thing with a woman
i'm trying to court into bedroom fun?
   oh no... that's not happening...
*** first... dinner after... i can't **** on a full stomach...
i need one bottle of cider and three sips of
whiskey and a cigarette or two...

seriously! it's an artifact of 20th century mating strategies!
anyone see a man on a horse
dressed up as a refrigerator, i.e. in full body armour
anywhere soon? maybe: sooner?!
i don't... the dynamic has changed... apart from one...
the eternal: the archetypical one:
the one i'm already suckling at...
oh... pristine! it's that expression of kissing
your index middle fingers and thumb
   joined up... kissing them and pursing your lips
and "smooching": i can't write this sound...
an onomatopoeia would be a waste of time...
and while kissing and making that "smooch"
releasing the fingers into an unfold...

                     hold on... what was i talking about?
i learnt this method from my English teacher
at Canon Palmer Catholic School (i'm not catholic...
you sort of have to be CONFIRMED to be catholic...
i was baptised unwillingly, i gave no consent)
                   Ser Tom-as Bunce! Scot... Glaswegian...
he taught by digression... oh man: he was an expert
digressionist... that should be an actual noun in
the Oxford Standard Dict. he digressed a lot...
                         his way of speaking? i think... i'm trying
to imitate by writing... oh forget that Beatnik cut-up
technique... i'm not stitching random things together:
i'm not the origins story of Tristan Tzara pulling out newspaper
clippings out of a top-hat as a Swiss counter protest
to the first world war...
i'm digressing... ooh... it's like that scene from the Lion
King with the three hyenas... DIGRESSING...
i'm DIGRESSING... say it again said one hyena to another:
MUFASA! DIGRESSION! ooh... gives me the ******* chills...

****... i've already lost the plot...
precursor summary...

- familial estrangement
- running with Justine in the rain
- cycling in the rain
- some sort of feeling
- yeah: now i know... the whole modern dating introspection
put me off course...
- there's still a cat, persisting to sleep in my bed...
- what time do i start tomorrow's shift?
4pm? it must be, it's a Thursday...
i'll finish by 11pm... eh... plenty of time to
go back to the brothel and sweet plump plum of a Michaela...
i seriously don't know what awoke my adoration
for these plump plum women...
yeah: i know... all those Renaissance paintings...
all the women were: over-nourished...
- i hate chocolate... but... if i make mint-chocolate
obviously i will not mind adding a few dark chocolate chips...

(intermission, refill, cigarette)

nicotine and the art of light-thinking...
everything about gustave doré etching of
the fall of Lucifer screams at me
to couple it with Muse's Stockholm Syndrome...
a whirlwind of gravity...
i sometimes feel it in my head...
most of the time in my groins:
my stomach is able to digest stake Tartare...

a holy trinity: Dürer... Doré...
   hmm... who was the third? i know there was a third...
painter: obviously... Rodin?

never mind... today was beautiful...
i wasn't expecting it to rain...
i'm used to cycling in hail...
little pebbles of ice hitting your body as if:
***** on the ready: pinch pinch pinch...
but this was different... a summer thunderstorm...
the rain so great by volume i overtook
uncertain motorists pulling in through lack of vision...
it was glorious: after all these heat-waves...
my session began with a cider... reclining on the fake
grass i installed with my ginger "behemoth"
(master and margarita? probably my favourite book,
no... Stendhal's the crimson and the black)

we chilled... he sneaked into my arm pit...
folding himself like a larva of a caterpillar...
grunting...
see? cats and prostitutes alike...
i'd love to see Muse live...
only for a few songs... well... a whole bunch of songs...
who was that third person i was thinking
of in that holy trinity?

Dürer... Doré... oh... wait... maybe i wasn't thinking
about a third person... who did i prefer?
the latter... although: neither are competing...
it's just a cheap-gimmick of making comparisons
of: well: whast's already available...

but the rain? splendorous! awakening!
i was the only cyclist: цyбał
left on the street... manic peddling....
i didn't listen to the weather-forecast...
me lying on the fake-grass with Quorus was
enough to justify my solipsism
that gave me energy to peddle in the adversity...
of rain that obstructed my vision....
but my god... it felt glorious...
after the heat-waves... getting drenched so much...
it reminded me of a certain summer
in Poland...
when my maternal grandmother was still
alive: while the patriarch of my maternal
side of the family died...

it was me and my auntie: we were of similar age...
it was a joke calling her auntie...
we ran into the air and seemingly ran on
water in the summer...
when the rain fell like a monsoon season finale...
barefoot on the concrete...
me and Justine...
too bad she married an ******* that
undermined my father's self-employment
subcontractor stature...
i hated him from the get-go... no ******* chin:
all sunken... top jaw exposing a gap in his lips...
i suppose he could, could... slurp a milkshake...
but if he were donning a shirt...
he'd might have to change it...
because he'd slobber any excess onto it...
a **** of a man... his parents sold saucepans
in a local market place...
they would have survived living in London
for about a week... small-town folk...
live-small: think-big!
there are many, many centres of the universe...
none have to begin with a fixation
on the solitary sun: just ask any solispist...
or don't ask any autistic crazed up frenzy of reflex...

GARKOTŁUK - a person who hits saucepans...
with no intention of becoming a Red Hot Chilli plumber...
plumber?! drummer... oh ****...

i live in a realm of familial estrangement...
me and Justine used to run barefoot in the summer rain...
come back home and get treated by our...
my great-grandmother... her grandmother:
she was my aunt mind you: but we were of similar age...
it was so much fun...
today's cycling session reminded me of those times...
hey presto: me replicating that memory: solo...
they tried living in London for a while...
instead: deciding on going back to ****** land...
opening up a laundry service in Warsaw...
i have cousins that will probably hear of me
as that "weird" cousin living in London...
  
      i have family: i don't have family...
i have a family of gold-diggers...
from my current employment... i've learned:
it's far better to love strangers than
to inherit a blood-line of two-faced
push-overs of hope...
i'm estranged from so much of my familial
ties it's no wonder i prefer the company
of strangers:
my heart has shrunk...
   to the size of a pebble...
  
                just like my grandfather predicted:
his words run along the lines:
makes your heart small... then watch how you'll
have people in your grasp!

facio vester parvus cor:
lapillus: in manus: amore mons...
a pebble in hand: a love of mountains...

familial estrangement is: weird...
what's weirder still: the capacity to loving strangers...
i don't know where this capacity was born
within me...
i simply can...mind you:
the closer i allow someone to entertain
my personal space: the more they hurt me...
best keep them at a distance...
i like cats: they don't require leashes...
just a call: come home... esp. Maine *****...
that's cats... but dogs? people?
leaches... i need leashes...

then again: i don't have a pet cat...
i have a cat companion...
lucky: ******* me not having a wife...
what would i do?
earn more money than is necessary?
i look up at the night sky and wonder:
when will my beard turn into a violin?!
i keep stroking this ****** thing like
it might be an otter:
just before a ******* strokes it back:
by then i'm: happy...

i've watched enough Bergman... that one
about a magician was my favorite:
it sort of reminded me of the French craze
for... le swashbuckle... Le Bossu...
le clapotisflampage!
two hunchbacks in one myth of a nation...

seulement Z français (not française - z'eh,
**** wit pseudo Normans)
françaí...
now i know why i didn't learn Fwench!
too many ******* surds...
letters imitating Thespians: actors of sound
missing...
    what... a ****** language...
perhaps great for thinking to echo thinking itself
via the thought of tables... chairs...
"Judases", i.e. peep-holes...
but in terms of correlating: what is spoken
with what is written?
French is the worst... English at least feels like
a terrible schizophrenic puzzle:
but one, one can work around...
Deutsche is just custard...
but French is the worst... too many surds...
just like the English stress that there are too many
consonants jumbled up in the ****** tongue...
likewise...
too many surds in the French zunge!

what?! no one who said that ever heard
of a game called ping-pong?! no? run Forrest! wun!
then again: no one knows whether i am:
or whether i'm not *******...
it'z: beautiful...
           i'll just finish early and have an early night...
thinking about Michaela for an hour...
her fat thighs and *******... all of her...
     just all of her... like i might think about a full English
breakfast after a day's worth of fasting...
even i am surprised: i like plum plump girls...
Ed Sheeran can sing his shivers song...
me? i'm doing the butcher's load of effort...
100 press-ups... readying myself for the *******...
me go Tarzan crazy feeling her legs wrap around me...
hell... bad luck...
if English girls are not willing to give it up:
living in a nation of joke-nuns...
no wonder i moved my libido elsewhere...
it's a long bye-bye... a very long bye-bye-...
my heart broke once... now?
each time it breaks: it's actually mending;
thank you Romania and your women;

figures... a nut-jobs contemplating feeding elephants
and a choice between cashews and peacans...
hmm! an impossible choice!
i'd prefer some Brazilian bite!

- hmm, the strangeness of women...
i might be a lion: but she's still playing the role
of a mantis: of hearts....
i can absorb the best genetic make-up...
Darwinism makes sense in and with nature,..
but not with man: out and without nature...
man is the epitome of nature:
without it...

             straw-blinded thrown blind-*******
into a commotion of a harvest of wheat....
before you close up your legs i'll re-open
them again:
why? because i can.
annh Jan 2019
Cuban motorists
expect the odd puff of wind
‘nother day, ‘nother Zephyr
Wrote this completely oblivious to Sunday’s tornado in Havana. An untimely post - kia kaha! :(
Mike Hauser May 2015
After dining at the finest of Maw and Paw restaurants
Frequented by men in trucks
Outside I slipped on the gravel drive
And as would be my luck

The LARGE cowboy belt I'm so proud of
Latched on and then got stuck
Now I'm off to see America
From the front grill of a Big Mac Truck

From the plains of Plano, Texas
To the hills of Hoboken Plantation, Tennessee
There's not to many places
That Big Mac Truck did not take me

To other motorists I was Mr. Friendly
With my arms flapping in the wind
They all would honk and wave and smile
As I smiled back with my bug filled grin

For weeks and weeks we went from coast to coast
Hollywood, California is where I made my mark
Someone happened to take my picture
Which made me an instant star

So I hooked my buckle to the front of a limo
As crowds started to recognize me
A Big Mac Truck would no longer do
When your a Big Time Celebrity

I was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
He interviewed me from a parking lot
The limo would not fit on the couch
Plus I can't get the buckle to unlock

Now when my limo pulls up to crosswalks
Pedestrians ask for my autograph
Before the light turns green and me and the bumper we  leave
I tell a few jokes and we share a few laughs

As life's fortunes would have it
I can't believe my luck
The day I tripped on that gravel drive
And fell into the grill of that Big Mac Truck
Mike Bergeron Nov 2011
“Nothing compares to
The way you make
Me feel”
She said with a grin
As he peeled off her skin
And dove into her soul
All the way to his heels
And she screamed with
Delighted fear
As he fought for air
And said “my dear,
I’ll love you forever.”

The cat sat in the window
As the spring flowers bloomed
And she marveled at
The cloud of doom
That had descended
On the room while
The canary lay dead
On the floor
In a beam of
Afternoon sun
Glowing red
Like the lead
That laid her to rest.

Infatuated with glitter
And dust
The lost soul
Skipped home
And passed the post-
Industrial relics
Of the past
In heaps of rust
And broken glass
And she was oblivious
To the fast moving
Motorists
And she stepped out
Just as the last
Arrived
And they all said
It was a miracle
She survived
But they couldn’t
See the demons
More alive than
Ever awakening
Inside her,
They poured out
And over
A world unprepared
For the beginning
Of the apocalypse
fueled by her love for
Feeling empowered.

God bless us all.
Makala Nov 2014
I am a thousand head-collisions of two
tractor trailers and you are the EMTs’
who come and save the motorists I put
in peril. I am that one-too-many shot of
***** that causes someone to crawl
to the bathroom on hands and knees
and you are the friend who holds their
hair back while they dispose of what
made them sick; me. I am the cancer
invading a loved one’s bones and you
are the chemotherapy that brings them
to a full recovery.
You are the beautiful arrangement of rays
that the sun glimmers down on peoples'
faces during the summer time, I am the
numbing frostbite from the coldest and
loneliest night of winter. You're all of the good
qualities made up in a person, and I am all of the flaws.
JC Lucas Mar 2015
The wind is always blowing here.
It rushes down out of the canyon
to the east
like a cavalcade of rhinoceroses.
The cyclists
struggle against it
the pedestrians
have to lean into it
the motorists
spend two dollars and ninety cents extra
each time they gas up
to compensate for it.
The trees on the eastern edge of the cemetery
are bowed-
to the west-
and their leaves don’t fall
they’re ejected
like screaming pilots from flaming cockpits
at wonky angles
until they crash into the grave markers below them.
And the headstones are all weathered
prematurely,
names and dates and histories
erased

while below,
wrinkled shells dressed in sunday suits
sit in metal boxes
pretending
that some shred of them
will last forever.
deprivedkat Jun 2016
I sit on the rooftop looking down. I look at my feet that dangle before me, traffic lights, cars and other motorists buzzing by, a mom pushing a stroller, kids frolicking in the grass because a new season has begun. I ponder about life itself. How can something be so excruciatingly invested in its own beauty but yet so atrocious at the same time? The daily news covers so much corruption throughout mankind but yet the view on the rooftop displays what is at peace with the world.

I feel as though we are governed by society, a caricature of how things should be and in this way some of us have grown to be cruel. One violently attacks another because of their religious beliefs, ****** orientation, physical appearance and race for reasons that i can't wrap my brain around. In this life, being different has become the elephant in the room, a label where society rears its ugly head.

It's upsetting how quickly some are to point fingers and publicly ridicule another without trying to put themselves in the victim's shoes. And maybe that's why I strive to be honest and embrace my difference. I feel for those who believe they are neglected by society and need to change who they are in order to fit in.          
       On the rooftop, i look for signs of humanity.
© June 16 , 2016 deprivedkat
Kenechukwu Jul 2023
Splinters, blisters.
Losers, winners.
Saints and sinners.
"Come in for dinner" s

It's where we learned to socialise.
Our very own sovereign land
zero politics
and conflicts always solved
hand to hand.

Loud junctions juxtaposed
against our little corner of paradise
motorists peering in when they stop at that red light.

Ringing on doorbells, buzzing on intercoms
The anticipation
to hear whether your friend was home or not.

Colourblind kids with the most vivid sight.
Retrieving footballs under parked cars
was the extent of our plights.

I didn't know where the world would take us
or the type of people it would make us,
but something I learned from a young age
is that the rest of the world isn't like
Gooseacre.
This is about the street I grew up on as a child. I'm sure many can relate. I haven't written in a while and I was feeling nostalgic. It's always best to make the most of these moments and store them in a poem.
effie ebbtide Apr 2020
replica of the statue of liberty, made of
concrete, a beacon for weary motorists
stranded on route 66, endlessly
drifting in the dusty abyss, stands in front of entrance
with her readymade torch.

she mumbles into a phone, then hands us a key.
a tiny room for breakfast goes unused
and the swimming pool is cloudy,
the concrete walls reverberating
empty chlorine
pleasantries, a watered down
hotspring dream.

above the headboard
is a long mirror, spanning
the length of the smoky room's
back wall, a silvery strip
reflecting faded yellow wallpaper
with subtle unspecified flowers.

the side exit leads to an empty lot, long
grass growing out of neglected potholes, a cyclone fence
blocking off a direct route to the sonic
drive-thru.

the sky is orange, it's always been
orange, it always will be
orange, looming over distant mountains
with narcissistic strata.
travel poem on a place i visited three or so years ago
Stephan Aug 2016


Off on a journey of landslide proportions
My plate is as full as I think it should be
Leftover meatloaf does sit in the kitchen
My eyes they are open much too wide to see

I live for these mornings when darkness is shifting
The sun in the east seems to rise with the wind
No telephones ringing unless I am singing
Now won’t you sit down once you choose to come in

Lost on a highway while trying to find you
My days spill as milk that has missed the first glass
Something is funny, a joke you just sent me
One I will place in my mind that will last

Different directions do flood visitations
We make the most of the time that we spend
Each day does pass even though I won’t let it
Oh how I wish that these days would not end

Living in love as an angel walks with me
Lighting the path of the places we go
Bringing our lunch in a tan wicker basket
Sending forth visions that ebb with the flow

Can you believe the direction we’re heading
Found in the middle where dreams they do lie
Symphonies play us their finest collection
Gardens of color to meet every eye

Bluebirds will sing if you listen so closely
Sonnets of love with each flap of their wings
Melodies float like a dandelion seedling
Filling our hearts with the vestige of spring

Colorful leaves gather out in the driveway
Nature born tapestries falling for free
Catching a glimpse of the seasons a’ changing
I am so thankful that you are with me

I feel that I must have picked the right numbers
Winning this jackpot of love you present
Six lucky numbers in some random order
This most precious prize for the dollar I spent

Now if you promise that you’ll never leave me
Standing alone on the corner of shame
Hands in my pockets the coins I am jingling
Asking the sidewalks to tell me my name

Then I will live like a king in a fountain
Splashing your love all over my face
Wet from the shoulders on down to the fashion
Happily laughing so free in this place

Love is the answer to all of my systems
Blood that does flow from my brain now to start
Keeps me alive as it carries affection
Straight from your smile to the depths of my heart

You are my flower that’s constantly blooming
Sending a scent that just drives my mind wild
Perfect your petals that brush past my fingers
Soft as is satin or the skin of a child

Look at me here as I stand now before you
A man who’s been placed in a magical cage
Not an illusion but truth in the making
The secrets revealed on the opposite page

Waving a wand is like dancing on sugar
It may be sweet but you stick to the floor
Nothing will change by that rod you are swinging
As long as you’re stuck to the one you adore

I caught the rose that the singer neglected
Funny how some things in life never change
Happily taking the gifts we’ve been showered
Closing our eyes when the moment is strange

Out of the fog or a misty concoction
That filled up the space that our lives occupied
Connecting our hearts like a staple on paper
Formed by the tears that the two of us cried

This is our fate so that we may enjoy it
Holding our hands in the face of the storm
Calling out windows to motorists passing
Pushing the button to sound the alarm

We are in love, the headlines are reading
Two hearts as one found atop of page four
If you are adding, the decimals point us
Straight down the path that we’ve been looking for

You on my arm is my medal of honor
Proud of our love is what I do foresee
Always, forever and days in between us
And longer still as your love covers me

Soften my heart with the heat of your passion
Brighten my life with the light of your smile
Color my dreams with your wonderful beauty
Live with me here in a magical style

I lay here in peace for I know that you love me
My heart beats for only the thought of your touch
Heaven must miss you, the skies must be lonely
For you are my angel, I love you so much
RMatheson Apr 2011
Today I was driving in my car, looking at my notepad
shoved without care
corner of a page bent
spirals grasped for life on the edge of that dive.

I thought that I felt I wanted to write,
but the glass inside my head was empty.
Forcing it full just causes it to break,
and so I wait for it to fill, fill, fill,
overflow and
capsize.

It comes suddenly:

a stroke in the section of the brain that biologists
have yet to identify.

a phone ringing at three thirty-eight in the morning.

a cat leaping from behind the corner, hitching a momentary ride on your calf.

a rush of amniotic fluid from a pregnant woman's crotch as
she stands over smooth tile.

How many pens have come apart in your mouth?
How much
redblueblackgreen ink
have you ingested in these pen-cap chew moments of inspiration,
trying to steer without looking,
shift with only *******,
scribble without seeing,
glances from concerned motorists in adjacent lanes.

How many
slips of napkins
notepads
envelopes
bills
book covers
receipts
skin
have you marked in fits of...
SøułSurvivør Jul 2016
shining sheet
satin chiffon scarves
beaded curtain of
aquamarine
and
chrystophase

who knew
beauty could wreak
such chaos?

overturned dumpsters
blocking the road
and a
matress floating down the street!

sirens shrieking
and cars flooded in roadways

some silly motorists
will be swept away in the washes

MONSOON MADNESS!


but agave bloom's
pale yellow petals
the color of an
old wedding gown
drenched with dew
sparkling
like
diamonds
with
the
parting
curtains

the sun cannot be

restrained


N
I                    B
A                                  O
R                                            W



Soul­Survivor
(C) 7/1/2016
We just had an incredible rainstorm!
All of what I said above really happened!
It was the hardest rain we've had in years. The June rainfall was the highest it's been for 50 years! The second highest since 1932.

I PRAYED TO GOD DURING
OUR HEAT WAVE FOR RAIN!!!

WOW!! DID HE DELIVER!!!

I took a picture of the Agave flower.
It is now my site photograph.

And the double rainbow!
Behind the wall three lads hovered
with intent on stealing petrol.
Ever ready to take rather than pay
it was more than two pounds!
For just a single litre of unleaded
could it be jail they were headed.

Not new at this dangerous business
risking not only being caught.
But the chance it could catch fire
they didn't care it was free
Fancy paying that much for car fuel
stealing now that was cool.

Motorists sruggling to fill their tanks
the cost was far too high!
But the government kept putting it up
the gangs adding to the misery.
As the population began to really tire
their patience about to expire!


A time comes when the limit is reached
the human spirit is breached!
To much is taken with little given back
then society is on an unsafe track!

Criminals always ready to con and steal
the public always losers in the deal!

The Foureyed Poet.
Fuel going up to disgraceful levels mostly tax! but somebody is always there to make money out of the situation. But the public are tiring of always being the losers! The Foureyed Poet.
Jonny Angel Jan 2014
Madeline walked around acting
like people were following her,
her head swung on a swivel,
displaying her torn skin
& scratching invisible insects,
she sometimes
spoke hollow words
through cracked lips
with missing chipped
brown teeth.

Her face was pocked
with sores not acne,
all of her ribs showed
through yellow spandex,
walked on black spikes,
the azure feather boa
didn’t match her
outfit.

She flashed her ****
& wiggled her hips
shouting,
“Wanna **** mes?”
at passing motorists.
That **** was a sad scene,
less than serene,
sirens blaring on Roses.
Starry Aug 2019
The average driver
Decision decision s
to go right
or to go left
There he waits
Until every thing is safe
Jackie Mead Jan 2018
One was about 83
Crossing the road quite fast and merrily
Pulling his shopping trolley behind
The trolley as tall as he was short
This made me laugh and made me snort
He was smiling too and seemed quite a pleasant man
He seemed aware of the traffic on the road and got to the other side as quick as he can

5 mins later I saw a man about 85
He was as tall as he was wide
Slowly crossing the road
Daring the motorists to try and go
When he got to the other side he paused I thought to wave thanks
Instead he lifted his ******* in salute and lifted his hat as all the motorists went toot toot
This made me laugh and made me hoot

At first I was shocked and a little rocked and then I began to smile

I finally worked it out if  am lucky to survive to the grand old age of 85
I hope I still have fire in my belly and able to walk about instead of sitting in front of the telly
God bless the OAP's and what do they have to worry about anyway, motorists are far too impatient to be honest.
Upturned umbrellas
Wind and rain
Missing raincoats
Take shelter and walk again

Scooting off through puddles
Splashing water on fellow motorists
Why should little kids have all the fun

Slippery mossy tiles
Earthworms, friends of the farmer
Not mine, touched them once
Never again, yikes

Heading back home
Yes it’s fun getting wet in the rain
Being a child again
B May 2016
Not a time, nor a place, but a date.
The date that changed my course of fate.
The day I was at my worst, not best:
The day my heart was ripped from my chest.

Where, you ask?
On a patch of grass,
For all public eyes to see.
Calling passersby and motorists: here's a show for free.

Already knowing what was to come,
I had time to prepare before the fun.
But no preparation was enough;
All my pride had turned to dust.

Crying and begging; not my finest hour.
Life turning from sweet to sour.
All the while a proud smirk sat,
Upon your face. What a ****.
Jonny Angel May 2014
Hauling *** on I-10
with a billion galaxies
exploding
in an array above me,
I descended on Deming,
crystal jewel city
twinkling madness,
a desert oasis
where nobody exists,
except super eights
and day inns,
barred prisons
capturing
exhausted motorists
& some are ***** houses waiting.
Seranaea Jones May 2021
-

feathered smudges like a floor spatter from
Jackson Pollard covered the lanes underneath
an old L&N railroad overpass where flocks
of pigeons used to **** from above

tiny pellets were sprinkled along the
rail banks & eager beaks pushed aside
large stones to pick out these "yummies"
which slid easily down the throat
causing vacant, fixed pupils

it is about thirteen foot-six inches from
the bottom of the bridge to the street,
hundreds of detached eyes looked
aimlessly from the pavement
for a sky to rise in

motorists rolled up the windows as they
approached for a finishing pass, hoping
maybe they would all eventually wash
away with the rains

i see a morning dove landing on my
porch railing, it's tiny black lenses
zooming into me through the window

causing me to think if maybe there is
a talon or a couple of small bones
embedded tread-wise into my tire

a vision now manifests some
thirteen foot, six inches away—

all those
                  eyes
...


s jones
2009-2021


.
pigeons used to occupy an old
railway overpass in a town that
i live near

authorities used some kind of
poison one weekend to cull
the animals

and this was the result...
effie ebbtide Jun 2018
a streetlight flickers as above
it the stars flicker, too
and below it someone's bic lighter
flickers. he flings a cigarette ****
into the storm drain.
whoever lives in the sewers
must feel awfully lonely right now.
someone's headlight is out:
an illegal asymmetry, a trick
enforced by the galleons of punk photons,
defined by waves (or particles) to ride upon
like the waves of sound that travel back and forth
between two angry motorists just laid off from work.
a new cigarette is pulled. what is this man blowing
away from his self and out towards the maybeinfinite undying
universe of unbearable light
sprinkling on him like rain that suddenly hits
a warm hornet-infested day?

— The End —