"pothole" poems
~~
*Once, I was a hard sand stone
Neither had I made a tune nor a tone
I had broken after a strong shock wave
From a waterfall, I had fallen into a pothole but could not settle
After I was moving with a long stream as a rolling stone
Now I have no edge but only passing a phase
A few days ago, I discovered myself as a grain of sand
And day by day, I have been drowning beneath the ocean
~~
@ Musfiq us shaleheen*
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 5:31 PM UTC
A country lane, which eats animals, earrings and experiences,
winds in spools around the oat-house and follows the broken wall.
My sister’s bottle green jeep made waves along the hedges,
she shook out her hairband and the conversations of the evening.
An owl asks on all sides, and would seem to answer himself as
the field barracuda, the vast wide eye for the minnow-mouse.
She put a pearl in the bushes, dangling spit-like,
an orb, a moon-berry, full and dead forever.
She drove faster, as the english night slowed down,
down by the where the willow covers the road sign.
She killed a badger,
as if they had both lost something here.
Sun-cooked,
crisp at the curling edges
he’s a dark patch, like a fixed pothole.
his bones tested her michelins in the morning
again, glassy eyed, stillened,
retroflective and blind to the shimmering shadow of flies
rising up through his skin like a spirit.
But both her ears are full.
Jan 10, 2016
Jan 10, 2016 at 3:40 PM UTC
a home, above all else,
is familiar.
it does not have to be comfortable,
nor does it have to be full.
a home is probably a favorite place to be,
or maybe it houses some of the cruelest memories.
I like homes where I can drive quick and still avoid each upcoming pothole--
ones where old neighbors and new couples hunker down for their respectful chapters of life.
I like homes where I can walk around each obstacle in the kitchen with my eyes shut tight and only bang my shins a little bit.
a home is a sense, an intuition.
it is a place where you can dance while no one is watching.
you can fling your tears and regret at the walls and let them absorb your true feelings,
hushing you with their pillows and soft sounds and views.
a home is a home anywhere you choose it to be,
but above all else,
a home is familiar,
and that is a home to me.
May 26, 2016
May 26, 2016 at 6:23 PM UTC
Bricks and mortar, steel and boards,
Phone poles lined with power cords, on
Pothole streets, where engines roar,
'Neath smoggy skies, where jet planes soar,
Where penny merchants peddle wares,
And news reports pretend they care,
Where vagrants sleep, and children stare,
And people work for lives not theirs,
That's life in the jungle, adrift in the herd,
Where terrestrial beasts envy free flying birds
Where the pundits stand polished, and speak empty words,
And the artists paint portraits, while posted on curbs,
Where the men push carts, full of empty cans,
And the women spend paychecks, for spray-on tans,
Where the truckers drive loads, 'cross a thousand mile span,
To appease the great gods of supply and demand,
Asphalt and tarmac, girders and glass,
Terrarium trees in cemented sod grass,
Ripe with the stench of exhaust fumes and gas,
As the choir lines up for the 10 o'clock mass,
While the brokers all scream, at a packed stock exchange,
As the veterans in wheelchairs sit begging for change,
That's life in the jungle, it's just a big game,
But remember you're playing, lest you go insane.
Mar 24, 2015
Mar 24, 2015 at 11:01 PM UTC
He watched as she fell
He watched as he did what he had to
He watched as she hit the ground
He listened
There was no sound
He watched as their world split
He cringed at the spectacle
Unfolding before his eyes
He listened
There were no cries
He felt the shockwave
As her reality exploded
He marveled at the colors the wound
He listened
And then it boomed
Violent
Force
Wreckage
Shrapnel
Fallout
Screams
Weeping
Unrestrained
Anguish
Betrayal
Hatred
But hold on child
This is not the end
This is just a pothole
On the Warpath of Love
So look to the Bittersweet Bystander
His hand extended now
Take the help he offers
You need it to continue
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 10:13 PM UTC
Three thousand miles
navigating a storm
without drop of bad weather
Abacus odometer clicks
rotating forward ―
spinning with the
world go round
Circling back down
a long and winding road;
where unforgotten memories
were once searchingly explored,
untrodden pathways
coursing way up north of alone
on the low highway
Now an aging shepherd
wonders without a compass ;
a vagabond deprived of light
from an ever blurring north star
Heart empty as a gas tank
with a broke down gauge,
running on fumes of hope
for unpromised tomorrows
Running from loneliness
just to be on the run
The gales of silence bellow
No feelings I can see ― lay me low
Wild-eyed daydreams
of Full sails billow out
through the windshield,
only hearing the unspoken
moments sigh restlessly ―
The dull droning road rumble
re-sighs renunciatively,
a tired monotone voice
mimicking the loathe silent echo
wallowing in an
omnipresent hollow void
deriding unspoken chaos
between the passing centerlines ―
A frost heave pothole erupts,
with a leaf-spring rattling thud,
as a fleeting cloud of dust arises,
set adrift with the draught
headed off the east side
of the Alcan highway:
blown way outside the lines,
towards the Alberta prairie
White knuckled steering wheel
held sway, rolling down
a beckoning wilderness
reincarnation;
default reset button paused ―
stuck in a moment ― until another jaw rattling
frost-heave pothole in the highway,
jars it free
Leaving it all behind
like a sigh breathed
in a silence a heart has outgrown;
just a fleeting cloud of dissipating dust,..
a paling whisper
the past seems to send forth
like a fading last breath
Letting it all unfold to become what it is
harlon rivers ... May 2018
... travelogue 2 of some
May 18, 2018
May 18, 2018 at 11:34 AM UTC
a hidden pothole
flying hipster bellyflops
onto the sidewalk
Apr 23, 2015
Apr 23, 2015 at 10:39 PM UTC
lightning vein,
drenching walk,
tea stall steam,
joy loud song,
pothole brim,
splashing talk,
bunch of friends,
evening tease,
folded jeans,
fording brand
new streams...
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 2:19 PM UTC
The cocoons cracked open
And these beautiful creatures
That resulted from metamorphosis
Fluttered around their new home
In the wife's stomach
"I am going to pick him up"
She kissed her daughter
Whom also had insects
Fluttering inside her 9 year old stomach lining
720 seconds were spent in the station-wagon
Dodging the potholes the city refused to repair
720 seconds were spent
Taking her to see him.
His flight landed
360 seconds after she arrived
And they embraced one another
for 180 seconds
Before she guided her camouflaged warrior
Back to the station-wagon
Sweaty palms gripped the steering wheel
Salt water streaks on her burning Scarlett cheeks
Bleached teeth being advertised
To her camouflaged warrior
Thhhunkthhuhnkthhunkk
Pothole.
As the wife turned to the rear window
Fearing she hurt one of God's creatures
Frightened she had innocent blood on her hands
Inadvertently disobeyed the shining red beacon ahead of her
Screeching metal violating airwaves
Burning tires sliding against asphalt
Glass fractals orbiting through the sky
Flatline.
Beneath the Mylar balloons
Waiting patiently under the "Welcome Home" banner
Sat a daughter with fluttering butterflies
Unaware the balloons would lose their helium
And the insects inside her would decompose
Long before she would be reunited with her parents again.
Jan 9, 2014
Jan 9, 2014 at 11:28 AM UTC
You can't safely have a cigarette outside of the bus terminal
without a couple of folk asking for one.
You can't safely have a cigarette in general.
But, if five of them have to last you a night and a sunrise,
you don't really mind turning down a few nameless hands.
Some of the bus drivers like to talk about football, weather;
others complain about management or the patrons;
a few don't say much at all, avoiding sympathy.
They're probably the smart ones.
They don't want to learn the sad stories in between stops.
I usually like to just sit in the back and ride out the best bumps.
The handrails jiggle and crash with every pothole.
-
The men who work at the metal scrap yard
usually get on in front of Debbie's Diner on 22nd street.
Bundled up for warmth and firm of face, they only speak to each other.
Small talk about who almost missed the bus, broken crane joints,
and who moved the most barrels of copper piping fill the blocks.
They tend to pick on the guy who runs the aluminum can crusher;
big guy, they call him "Boose" and he couldn't be much older than I am.
His hands and lips are dry and cracked from exposure,
but his face still shows ember of teenage years, though jilted.
There is a bar that serves three-dollar chili across the street, spicy.
The workers go there when they miss the first bus, have a beer,
down a bowl of boiling chili, and catch the return bus in better moods.
-
The railroads on Brush College road tend to hold up traffic.
The ADM plant doesn't really mind if a few twenty-something mothers
are late to their practical nursing and phlebotomy classes,
but they voice their complaints out of a cracked window to the side
of a ten story soybean silo nonetheless; steaming ears and all.
I stare at the graffiti on the laggard train cars, each unique
in color, quality, style, and message; the industrial Louvre.
These waits sometimes last a half hour or more.
In the days before Pell grant rewards come in,
when students still feel like they're working toward tangible cash,
the seats are all packed with heavy breathers.
The air becomes thick with community college carbon coughs.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 9:23 PM UTC
winter has left and it took him with it,
along with my sanity and understanding.
and you would think spring would bloom flowers,
but i only see myself wilting and shaking.
winter may be gone, but the winds inside of me are still screaming;
more often than not i'm left clutching my heart in the middle of the night
crying because the rain of spring never really did make it's appearance,
and I'm lost.
There's something about the smell after the rain;
you know, the kind where all feels as if it's been washed away
and made new again? That's what I needed.
Droplets formed on the windows of the car,
as did they on my cheeks while his arms wrapped around me;
his head resting on mine like clouds during rain or shine.
Tonight, I was a thunderstorm.
He was always my rain;
sometimes he was a drought, sometimes he was a weekly storm;
but he was always my rain.
My sorrows were puddling into my hands,
my mind the heavy fog of a late March night,
and my heart a huge pothole in the middle of the road.
It's 12:45 and my clothes smell like him;
it's the smell after the rain;
didn't think I could drown in so many ways.
I'm stuck in the rain,
but i wish it was his cloud.
NJ2015
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 12:53 AM UTC
Some days yu know, mi just don't andastan
How a man can do di tings him do, an see himself a man.
Him seh dat god give im good sense a will and a soul
to know right ting fram wrang ting, to know pit from pothole.
But im covet an steal an shed blood
like a beast. Then im walk inna church
and pray god give im peace.
Is a human condition an a weakness a flesh
Is flaw in im naycha, a thorn in him breast.
But we human creecha, ought betta than best.
Ought draw a distinction from fish and from fowl.
Ought rise above avarice , greed and the rest.
But sometime I feel sure that the writing on wall.
will come to fruition and mankind will fall.
Is a small part of hu-man sunk deep in we core
what comes up and sprout wings and carry us shore.
Is that thing there, part spirit, part will, part divine.
What pull us from struction then skitter, then soar.
Then beat wings in hubris like Icarus lore.
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 3:42 AM UTC
This is Detroit
and we ignore
what the rest of the world
has to say about us,
we wear our stink
like a badge of honor
and we laugh
at the fear on your face
knowing where you are
and what youve heard.
This is Detroit
the motor-city
which means
you better own one
because our public transportation *****
our roads aren't much better
and our gas prices are high
which means
the speed limit is unacceptable in the fast lane
in fact,
anything thats not 10-15 over
is not acceptable
treat our highways like the autobahn
This is Detroit
and any Coney Island you go to
you shouldn't see any fries
underneath the chili and cheese
regardless how small It may be
This is Detroit
and its a city that refuses to die
because of its artistic output
from Motown
to Eminem
and our failures
that catch the eye of the world
yet we live on
through the hardship
that builds our character
as they scoff
This is Detroit
and every pothole
every decaying building
every makeshift
into a new business
is a character trait
where banks become pizza shops
and theaters parking lots
This is Detroit
where we still show up and party
for a football team that has never
won a Superbowl
This is Detroit
we are dangerous
we are lawless
we know our own
and we wouldn't want it any other way
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 7:13 PM UTC
Old Gray: My Life With You, My Life Without You
Tigers Jaw: Teen Rocket
The World Is A Beautiful Place: Heartbeat In The Brain
The Story So Far: Navy Blue
Counterparts: Decay
Foxing: Inuit
Karen O: The Moon Song
Have Mercy: Living Dead
Modern Baseball: Pothole
Moose Blood: Gum
The Wonder Years: Madelyn
...and we'll kiss and laugh and talk about how we're just small specks of dust in the universe wondering what our purpose is.
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 10:10 AM UTC
In the fog
streetlight glow:
Will-o-the-Wisps
Embers wrapped in gauze
harsh yellow light
spills into grey monotony
The world has shrunk
confined
to the pools cast by floating lamps
All else
is a faded
grey blur
A stagnant breeze
stokes the down air
into writhing ethereal vines
Vision clouded
permeated by whisper
mist caressing
Everything is painted mute
a drear uneasy blanket
cast into the valley
I drift
strung along
by the luminous spectral splashes
Unseen
Unnoticed
a smudge in a world of vapor
Am I
anymore definite
than the intangible fog?
March today
despite being January
At least a good day for a walk
Ice in sepia speckled with black
wilted under
the Water’s surface
Ridges and islands
of white ice protrude
from the murk
Delicate ripples
roil from
inky black wells
Drab and tattered
the snow trodden grass
sways in the wind
Murk
Murk
The color of tea
steaming
Chai
In a floral mug
A warm up from
the chill
walk
I drink down
to the dregs
satisfied
It’s still March
as if January resigned early
and February forgot to come
Forty Degrees
clad in shorts
and sweatshirt, I walk
Air perfumed by thawing soil
and melted pond pools
painted robin’s egg blue
Ice bent trees
bow towards the road
like children’s hands
Reaching towards
pothole puddles with trickles
trailing like balloon strings
Reflecting the sky
inverted vignettes
Caste in brown
Framing the trees
skeletal fractal fingers
reaching across the tableaux
Peering through the clouds
the Sun silhouettes
black bottle brush pines
Jan 18, 2014
Jan 18, 2014 at 6:24 PM UTC
I never noticed until now
Detroit is a real town
Thru a puddle, I go
Past the shuttered laundromat
The charcoal stump colonials
Carnivorous ivy
Strangling the
Rustbolt cars lining the
Pothole roads that I never noticed
Until now, Detroit is a real town
At the corner of Rosa Parks Dr.,
A rotting moonlight and gasoline aroma
A damp liquor store and a bus-stop
sign,
6 ghosts linger around the metal post
Like silvery mothra ,
Clinging at night to an outdoor light
The saviour stop.
For tiffany spirits
With expressionless faces.
Two phantom headlights manifest
Out of the indescribable looming night
And park at the sign
The ghosts faint
Thru the double doors
Of one rickety, dutiful citybus
The tailpipes dripping wil-o'-the-wisp
As it proceeds out of my view
Into dark night shade.
.
Dec 28, 2012
Dec 28, 2012 at 12:52 AM UTC
Stepping stones
wet twigs mossy overgrown
footfalls, rain washing the greening path home
grassy droplets, little trickles running
puddles fill the pothole road
clouds break, parting dusk of day
tiny violets sunning
Mar 27, 2013
Mar 27, 2013 at 12:48 AM UTC
.
There’s an ancient duct tape patched
roller suitcase still up in the attic,
scarred by sky miles and undiscerning
indifference; it came to rest like a final breath
exhaled at the end of the long road ―
In the dusty rafters of silent repose
the death of an alter-ego comes to life
and jars and jogs the sleeping dogs
that lay benign as a pothole riddled road
Holding onto memories buried alive,
hidden away remembered ―
sans wings to fly away
laid bare unweighed with the weight
of everything else garnered and saved
subsisting in a shallow grave;
hoarded and hidden away breathing
locked up with the other baggage borne
behind tired eyes
Feeling the ache of blood stained knees
falling down sullied at the side of the road
Hindsight and a roll of duct taped memories
linger; stuck to the grey bandage scars,
second guessing should have thrown out
with the permanently temporary
fading plasticized luggage name-tags
back when I was still close enough to care;
too many miles to reconsider ago
Some say: "it's the journey not the destination" .
Some day when its too late we'll know
Some day it will be too late to make amends
for everything i could not be ...
harlon rivers ... 07 06 2018
Jun 9, 2018
Jun 9, 2018 at 11:52 AM UTC
In the seat with the split window,
black cold metal blocked the road ahead,
the sliver of window from the seat infront of me
clouded and beaded with cold rain.
I'm only aware of what's passing me now --
what I've already passed.
None of it feels real, though.
The trees and roadside ditches seem to jump
like an old film
like thousands of pictures flashing in sequence.
The rain streaks making the scene flow not quite right.
A few seats behind me painted nails trace an empty smile
on the condensation.
Thousamds of raindrops rolled behind
two blank eyes and one hollow smile.
Yet,
the image never beaded and melted away,
even as she started to cry.
I watched the wind pet small waves
onto window puddles,
and flinched as pothole vibrations cut it apart.
As we lerch forward --
perhaps for a red light --
the puddle would run to an unseen place,
a place I could not see yet.
Apr 30, 2014
Apr 30, 2014 at 11:53 AM UTC
(Life is living art)
AGAINST THE BRICKS
****** leans
Against the bricks
Gotham gothic walls
Left thumb hooked on a pocket of his
Faded denim jeans
Right hand caressing a carnation
Steady
Ready to go
Mr. ****** in a James Dean glow
Mean
Black leather jacket
Shiny slick like
Ghetto pothole puddles
Wet lacking rain
Only street lamp
Spot light
Backstreet dangerous
****** leans with
A flower for Ms. Green
Come hither squeeze
He waits
There in the sallow
Glow
Another shadow
Against the bricks
Graffiti Canons spray paint art
Masterpieces
Within living scenes
Cool as concrete rain
Patient as an evening breeze
Passing moments
A Smiley face
Honest pain sculptures
Poetry is exploding
Street Glean
Art full in appreciating
brick walls
In his ****** lean
Worth is in / our noticing
This
Life's living work of Art.
Dec 8, 2015
Dec 8, 2015 at 2:26 PM UTC
On the surface of your skin
I can see
You are
Within the reflection of a breath
And soft
Spoken words
They demand everything
At once my
Heavy thoughts
Soak
In blood while
In some other world the desolation
Of days gone
Filters like 26
Fleeting memories
Strangled
By the hands of
Angels
I’ve described my moments on napkins
And given them to strangers
On the street
At some point my collapse
Will re-invent the air and the movement
Of your digestion
And the scary
Part of you
Will be there holding me down
Pressed
Against
The glass wall
The reflections will disappear and broken
Windows cut
Each
Artery
I’m letting
Go
Don’t be afraid
If all else within my reach loves
You then we can die
Like small raindrops trapped in a
Pothole
The miscarried thoughts of eyes
And saliva soaked kisses soon
Envelope you an extension of morning
And the hands that touched you in so many ways are now lost
In the vague shadows of your voice
Apprehending colors that disappear and I forget about you and silence
Left among the doves of grass
Your shelter it all
Oct 21, 2013
Oct 21, 2013 at 10:10 AM UTC
***No one passes through here ever stays for long
i can't even seem to catch sight of my own road home
The body hanging at the end of my own line i don't recognize
waiting for a change ― that never comes around
Fleeting through the primrose path crossroads in a blur,...
right now i'm standin' here like a brainless scarecrow all alone
Just another familiar frost heave pothole barely shunt
swerved around like an unmarked bump
on this frozen lonesome road
i let you see it and you told me what it was ,..
but the rear-view mirror only reflects the tracks left behind
Looking for the Black Box to unearth the cause of the crash
somewhere underneath a black and white rainbow i can't find
If you see a wayfaring stranger that abides undone
don't even stop to feel the ache that trickles down
Just hit the gas and hold sway the wheels go round,
look off---- the dead raccoon lay sullied at the side of the road
No one passes through here ever stays for long
i can't even seem to catch sight of my own road home
The body hanging at the end of my own line i don't recognize
waiting for a change ― that never comes***
Nov 14, 2017
Nov 14, 2017 at 12:48 AM UTC
No stars or moon;
The night sky is cloudy,
Like the thoughts in my mind;
Jumbled and incoherent,
Will it ever clear?
The doubts and confusion,
Dark and heavy;
Weighing down my heart,
But I'll fly high and above;
This veil of resistance,
I will rise above it all;
On top of the world once more,
Because no pothole is too deep;
Nor any barrier too thick,
That I cannot overcome;
No one can hold me down,
I am meant to soar;
No shackles can contain my spirit,
Not life; not love; not fear;
If it can't **** me,
I will persevere;
Not to be made an example of,
But to lead by example...
© okpoet
Jan 3, 2013
Jan 3, 2013 at 1:33 AM UTC
i remember again why i hate the summer as the jeep jostles on the bumpy dirt road to the river
my shorts ride up over my knees and i have to keep my hands splayed over my thighs so you won't see the godawful things i carved into them years ago
the music blares and skips like my heartbeat does when we hit a pothole and you go flying into me
you laugh, leaning against my shoulder like it's nothing to you
i laugh, the heat of the day creeping into my face because you're everything to me
i stammer out something dry and everyone laughs
you look at me, the glitter of the sun against the river quite clear in your eyes and in your smile
you tell me you smile with your eyes and i believe you
i adjust my sunglasses for the third time but by the time we arrive in a cloud of dust and laughter the sun is already behind the tree lined mountains
May 10, 2015
May 10, 2015 at 11:05 PM UTC
Like the tiniest of pebbles,
ignored by the cool fingers of the laughing brook.
Like the obscure cave...
So inaccessible that it never sees the light of day.
Like the move easily dismissed.
When the queen overshadowed the rook.
Like the kite that spiralled downward.
When its string snapped and wind refused to play.
Like the pothole that tripped,
simply because indifferent feet would only overlook.
Like an idea that never sees fruition,
when open minds are scarce and clenched fists scream nay.
Like hidden reasons that remains unseen.
When we judge by the actions we conveniently mistook.
Like consequential words whispered under my breath.
They bear much weight...
But I'm too afraid to say.
Aug 13, 2016
Aug 13, 2016 at 9:42 AM UTC