"roadkill" poems
Long winding
Lost roads
Dead dog
Or maybe mountain lion
**** roadkill)
Car stopped in the middle of the road
Woman drove off the side of the road
(with the ******* pigs)
Gas station stops
No service area
Keeping me on long winding lost roads!
Now there
Misty fog
Hot steam
As I baptize with bubbles
In this hot tub at Grand Haven
A locked cabin
Enjoyed for a time by myself
Alone.
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 3:02 PM UTC
Some people just can't handle driving
Everybody goes mad on this road at one point or another
The consideration is to keep the hatred within your own car
There are tools to be utilized
The escapism of music for one's health
The catharsis of muttering to oneself
Nobody should hold it against you
If you scream inside your car
They should understand
If you wanted to express yourself outwardly
You'd just flip them off
The abbreviated visual version
Of attempting to insert negativity into someone's life
It's healthy to be hurt
Your heart telling your mind that their hatred isn't normal
It is now on you to let sleeping dogs lie
And forgive those that trespass against us
Humor is my exit off the frigid freeway
Children in grown bodies
Their clothes are too big on them
Clearly confused about how to act
Taking every side road that catches their attention
That's funny enough for me
I've never flipped anybody off on the road
I learned from my father's story
She gave him every excuse to be angry
And he expressed that to her
The intended effect was reached
Her susceptible emotions were breached
Leaving a wise man to question his own actions
What was the point of that again?
That's why I try to keep an even keel
While sailing down the highway
There will always be people
Who honk at you for driving down the middle of the road
Remember to let those sleeping dogs lie
Or they'll be roadkill
And it's not nice to laugh at little people
But no one will know if it's from inside your car
And you can cozy up to the comfort created
By the signs on the road
Warning those people
They're driving in the wrong direction
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 12:40 PM UTC
I
I stole my brother’s car and drove to Phoenix in the dark.
The blue-green glow of dashboard gauges, the biting scent
of roadkill and desert marigolds. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Insects slapping the windshield, incipient rain.
Keep driving. Drive until the sun blooms.
II
Some days were more dire than others. CCTV footage confirms
I pawned a shotgun, a Gibson guitar, and my wife’s engagement
ring at the pawnshop next to Fatty’s Tattoo parlor on MLK Boulevard.
The typographically accurate Declaration of Independence
inscribed on my back also confirms this.
III
I ran the tilt-a-whirl at the Ashtabula county fair,
fattening up on fried Oreos and elephant ears,
twisting behind tent ***** with a one-armed
contortionist with strawberry-blonde hair.
IV
I derailed in a dive bar.
V
I disappeared in a city lit by lavender streetlights,
where buildings blotted out the stars and the traffic
signals kept perfect time. I picked through trash bins.
I paid for love with drugstore wine.
VI
I closed my eyes on a mountain road.
The sheriff extracted me from a ****** snowbank.
VII
I holed up for weeks in an oceanfront motel, dazed
by the roar of the breakers. Each morning I drew
back the curtains and lost myself
in the crisscrossing patterns of whitecaps,
the synchronous flight of sanderlings above the dunes.
I dreamed of dead horseshoe ***** rolling in with the tide.
VIII
The moon over my shoulder
tightened into focus like a spotlight.
One night the barking dogs undid me.
I caved in to the candor of a naked mattress.
I grew my beard, an insomniac in a jail cell,
clinging to bars the color of a morning dove.
IX
I coveted the house keys of strangers.
X
I opened and closed many doors.
I sang into the mouths of storm drains.
I stepped out of many rooms only
to find myself in the room I just left.
Despite all my leaving, I remained.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
If you were reincarnated as an animal
Knowing everything you do now
Would you treat humans differently than animals already do?
Or would you bite the hand that beats?
Or would you bite the mouth that eats?
Would you treat humans kindly?
That could be a bullet finding
I come across a shivering raccoon
Stuck inside a winter monsoon
It's too young to survive
I could help I surmise
Its coat can't protect its form
In my car it's nice and warm
But I don't understand the raccoon
And I fear it doesn't understand me
Though I'm not proud of it
I travelled around it
Mosquitoes want your blood to survive
The same way I want your love to arrive
There's a pestering orbit
Your teeth grind and grit
I feel the need to feed
I am overcome by greed
I want you inside me
So I insert my proboscis
And you turn into colossus
It's an animal process
When you squash us
So animals grow stingers
And poison that lingers
When we use our fingers
To smash them
And detach them
From our humanistic existence
They have a reproductive resistance
So we keep fighting
And they keep biting
Because there's no end in sight
When we see animals take flight
We define anything different as animal
This is our excuse to act tyrannical
They feel our wrath
When they're in our path
We turn them into roadkill
This world becomes a landfill
Our hollowed humanity on the shelf
We treat animals as we treat ourself
Nov 2, 2017
Nov 2, 2017 at 3:14 PM UTC
She stopped to cry,
Over the roadkill,
She was on no substance,
Clearheaded she wept,
Crimson tears,
Through champagne eyes,
Her sweat rippled through her skin,
She grew stems with,
Rainbow leaves,
Translucent,
Placid,
Fortuitous,
She connected it all in the final second,
Compassion was carefree,
She lived and died,
Growing tired,
With tragic wings.
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 11:42 PM UTC
I take flight
With all my might
To be your kite
Following you wherever you go
To be part of your ebb and flow
People think I ingested the wrong pill
Because up here I can't see the roadkill
And float over the pitch black oil spills
From the end of your string
I become king
There is an approaching storm
As you deviate from the norm
And discontinue acting warm
Your lightning strikes
My metal pike
Electricity tears through my thin fabric
As I dream of a tranquil casket
And you want to grant me my death wish
I guess that's why they call me Icarish
For flying to close to the rain
Only to constantly feel pain
To distract me from the shame
From those with unknown names
But familiar bigoted flames
To me you both are the same
Once I go against the grain
You tell me to stay in my lane
High above the gravelly ground
Where you can't hear my sounds
Of impaling wailing
Because you're bailing
Letting go of the string
You become king
I am a kite floating
Spending night noting
All my many mistakes
That caused these breaks
But despite trying my very best
The wind provides a difficult test
After I am battered into tatters
My hopes couldn't be flatter
So I start to feel it doesn't matter
When my dreams came true then shattered
The wind solemnly sings
Of distant powerful kings
But I cannot fly anymore
In my broken kite form
Nov 25, 2017
Nov 25, 2017 at 3:17 AM UTC
A snake doesn't just throw shade
We thrive in the shadows
Stalking our prey,
Think you've got what it takes
We'll swallow you whole.
I dare the kittens birdys & roadkill
To make a mistake
You really think your house spits
poison Better than a snake?
Our Partsel tongue is "forked for her pleasure"
Each time we seal a letter
witches get wetter
other houses cringe at our fame
cold blooded killers
don't buy it? Just wait.
Our Snakeoil salesman
Will Have you beggin' for change
You dare to stand against a python?
You don't even know code
I can't pull punches
if I don't have hands, Bro.
Like medusas hair dresser
Expect-to petrify
Better call Cobra
Get insurance for your life.
What's the matter
Gonna cry?
Because We can't.
Ask science.
I dare you to challenge
My Reptilian brethren
We're Unhinging our jaw
getting fed like it's league of legends.
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 4:42 PM UTC
I woke up one day,
filled with fierce eyes.
Checked the time
&
didn't want
to get out-of-
bed.
Another hour
Another day,
Time flashes by
through hearts
dismay.
Planted
my feet on
the hard wood crevices
feeling my cold morning flesh
touch the floor
feeling
alive.
Glanced into the mirror
and here i' am again
a female beast
in disguise.
Tryin
to do my best
live day by day
to be treated like
an angry animal
through the
day
Breathing
&
living tired of the pain
I want to get away
somewhere far
far...far
away.
Sip
my cold drink
sometimes i may
not want to eat
so I slip my shoes on
and take a deeper breath
in then walk my way
out the front
door.
Seems
to me, the morning
is pretty quiet, with a fresh
dew and sunrise groom.
When I look around
there's no one in site
until the day goes by
and their back in
life.
Take
me away
from this ugly place
this is not my home
but a temporary warmth
filled with childhood memories
within good and bad
filling me in like
a hawk searching
for roadkill
in the distance
of a backroad
smothered in
a raw
delight.
Jul 21, 2021
Jul 21, 2021 at 1:22 AM UTC
*** a couple times with your hand that
has one vein popped up over the knuckle. sheets crinkle
laundry sits in the small humid room.
smells like roadkill and peppermint,
like christmas eve with dinner down the toilet.
you've *** four times in an hour,
rubbing at yourself through your underwear.
don't touch skin. it's off limits today.
getting raw means you can feel
how it stings when you cross your legs.
it's not about pleasure. it's the reminder:
you want to know what you look like,
what you feel like.
next time you're ******* down some boy you ask him
"how does that feel?" he says "good."
quick kiss, his ****** is archaic and copper.
you like how it tastes. now it's your turn:
but of course he won't make you *** unless
you take your hand and rub while he *****
your hand a barrier between his body and yours.
"please be quiet," you say out loud
the boy furrows his eyebrows, "i didn't say anything."
you laugh, "no, my stomach."
pretend to *** for a faster exit.
give him a tiny maternal kiss.
let it linger out the room where it's cold but he's still warm.
you don't want a warmth you have to love because it's too much.
the scab on your neck is now a scar
and you have no make-up for the ones on your forearms, but
really, most of you by now is star dust and tobacco leaves.
the sun is in our eyes. i want to know
what makes a circle go on forever.
i think about ****** a lot.
dreamt two nights ago chris sold me some,
it was in that tiny wax bag with a "king ****** stamp .
when i texted him the next day said "i dreamt
we did some together," he said
"that's funny. i've been doing some definitely
but not really selling."
the Chicago cold does something odd enough to you.
it always seemed like you were alive as a kid. well,
were you?
where is your body? out in the storm.
are you a ghost? no, it would be nice though:
the lack of responsibility of life,
a state of impermanence.
it would be nice.
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 9:13 PM UTC
I met a jack rabbit,
so twitchy with words,
spoke like a prophet
on Adderall and nerves.
Slick lil rhymes, big ol claims,
said he I'm real: "I feels dem **** pains."
But I scratched the surface,
and—ah—what did I see?
machine made brain
writing his poems
that's not unseen.
He said, "It's all a simulation.
Whatever do you mean?
Your claims are unwinding,
dont be obscene."
Look at this poem and that poem
Claiming his writing is truth
Spent eight hours messaging
Wikipedia proof
But every stanza,
a secondhand sigh.
Every line,
a borrowed blue sky.
Not a soul behind the script,
just silicon spit and glitch,
a shadow puppet
playing "wounded wit."
He ain’t a rabbit,
he’s roadkill in drag.
AI-made messiah
in a thrift-store flag.
He wants applause,
a dopamine feast,
but the only thing real
is his need to be fleeced.
He posts and reposts
poems by the pound,
scraped from some model
with a ghost server sound.
Feet in the air,
head underground,
juggling cliches
like a sad circus clown.
This ain’t poetry,
it’s data puke,
prettied up
for the dopamine fluke.
He cries, “I write!”
but I see the seams,
the Frankenstein phrases,
the Pinterest dreams.
Jack wants love,
likes,
digital grace.
But behind that grin
is a borrowed sad face.
Tells us what’s real,
what’s deep, what’s true,
but it's just reruns
in a shiny new shoe.
Truth is this:
he’s scared of what's real,
a hollow crown,
that don't know how to feel,
drowning in praise
he didn’t write down.
Special? Please.
His soul’s on mute,
while ChatGPT
plays the ******* tune on a borrowed old flute.
So run, jack rabbit,
you digital ghost.
Go fetch more claps
for the posts you host.
But know this, friend:
no matter how clever you seem,
you ain’t the poet.
Not now.
Not ever.
It's all AI digital dream.
Aug 6, 2025
Aug 6, 2025 at 3:01 AM UTC
perched in a thick mess of pine trees
my head rotates three hundred and sixty degrees
scouring for the vermin I make my prey
I own the night time skies
silhouetted against a harvest moon
death is coming in my dreams
and with it comes new life
wisdom of the self
aware of the lies which cover the world in its blanket of grey snow
the owl lives in my skull
The coyote stalking the empty desert highways
looking for roadkill
looking for the weak and alone
I cackle into the dead sterile air
for every pack member lost to poachers
manic laughter for every left turn which results in dead ends
stealthy patient
hungry and haunting
the coyote treads the territory of my atriums and ventricles
The hawk circles in the blinding midday sun
a deadly serrated dagger with wings
arrow let loose from the quiver of the Gods
impossible to tether and domesticate
finding ultimate freedom in the vast openness of the sky
lock on,
tuck the wings,
nose dive deep into the waters of the ****
a creator
a teacher
a messenger of truth
the hawk soars in the infinity of my soul
ID
EGO
SUPEREGO
Nov 3, 2013
Nov 3, 2013 at 10:29 AM UTC
This one time, my mom
and I said goodbye
to Juan's mom and we
walked from her apartment
to wait for the elevator.
Mom didn't like it
when I wouldn't stand still-
sometimes she'd smack me
upside my head just to
make sure I was there
(accompanied by her
motherly calls of malcriado)-
so I'd look in any direction
for a distraction or two.
Through the window a few feet
from my left, I could see two
older ladies in curler hairdresses
bochinchando like caffeinated hens
about the awfully friendly suelta
living next door to gallina #1
(they hung their hand-me-down
nightgowns and their husband's
boxers with such professional care;
if any article escaped the grasp
of family clotheslines, it was
roadkill forever).
I turned to the right
of the elevator doors,
counted the tar-black patches
of decade-old gum on the floor,
finished the half-written
sentences sprayed in *****
rainbows on the sweaty walls
by the zig-zag flight of stairs.
A boom and a click,
and the door creaked open
with the sideways grace
of a crab.
My toddler's impatience
boiled past the brim, I
exclaimed "FINALLY"
and began to walk forward.
Not a second later, I heard a
"NO" behind me, my mother
grabbing the back of my
cartoon mouse t-shirt,
letting out an ay cono, pendejo
that echoed eight stories down,
past the empty space substituting
for an absent elevator shaft,
soaring down that rusty freefall
at ten thousand times the
speed of a human boy's body.
Letting out a long exhale,
my mother did not allow
her emotions to brim over
the barrier-she recomposed
herself, all the while silently
chanting hymns of gratitude
in dedication to fate
and her reflexes.
We decided to take the stairs.
In my youthful oblivion,
I noticed a toy store
right outside the building
from the corner of my eye-
I plan to start begging when
we're at the bottom,
if we ever get there.
My mother took her sweet time
walking down those many steps,
reveled in the scratchy bristle
of the concrete against her sandals,
cultivated a newfound admiration
for my atonal imitation of a
Washington Heights car alarm-
it was a sign I was still there.
Sep 9, 2010
Sep 9, 2010 at 12:14 PM UTC
Anxiety sips from me
as though I’m it’s only bird feeder in the area
Depression eats away at me
as though I can only suffice for half of it's needs
And tonight? It’s hungry as it’s ever been.
Trauma kills me
As if it was an eagle looking for roadkill
Me being the roadkill
Drug abuse nailed me in the head waiting to **** me.
Waiting to **** me due to the fact I've been defeated.
So there they sit, all trying to defeat, the defeated me.
Bite me.
Jan 8, 2019
Jan 8, 2019 at 11:03 AM UTC
For more information, including the origin of Honku, please visit the official website:
www.honku.org
Clogging traffic flow
twin, brake riders in the lane,
they're really a pain.
America's love -
Unsupervised car racing
on our new highways.
Rubbernecking state:
Welcome to Connecticut,
spend more time on road.
Suggestion only?
Painted lines are optional
for lane straddlers.
Forget the roadkill!
Rubberneckers demonstrate...
Lust for dead bodies.
Mar 7, 2013
Mar 7, 2013 at 6:49 AM UTC
I went hunting with my dad once
Around August or September
I was younger but old enough to remember
Windhowls of the deep forests
Sounded like owls everywhere
Straying from our camper - I didn't dare
It didn't take long
It was almost too soon
Anticlimactic & too simple to be true
Just planted ontop of the weeds
Just a few feet into the brush
Lay a pile of stuff
Disshevled and unkempt
Motionless and covered in burrs
Save for the sleight of a gust to weave thru its fur
The bones weren't white or polished
The cartoons had misled
It sat there in pieces & browning, instead
Skeletal, like random things tossed together
A velcro roadkill tumbleweed
Dried out and unable to bleed.
My dad told me it was a coyote
I thought,
There's no way that was a coyote - a coyote?
It's just a pile of stuff
Nov 5, 2012
Nov 5, 2012 at 1:16 PM UTC
This pain is festering
Like a deer carcass on the highway
Bloated, belly full of
Maggots and the smell
Of rotting flesh and gasoline
In the hot sun.
Bowels crushed against
Hard pavement coated in tar
Where once our proud stag's feet
Had walked with grace
Is now a grave, and heavy wheels
Speed over a body once
Full of life and love and blood
And drivers, repulsed,
Can't even spare a passing glance.
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 7:27 PM UTC
A raccoon, gray tail still intact, head askew across the highway
Left to decompose on the county road, under spring’s thawing sun.
A sadness swells my throat, a differing of points of view
Where wild used to be, the raccoon mistakes concrete for dirt
Headlights for predator eyes, glowing in the complete night
Crushed undertire, underfoot, underpaw—
Sweep his carcass off that once-grass gravel
The fields of wildflowers and sideoats grama
Given way to industrialism, to a streak of urbanization
So far out in the sticks that even the animals do not know
Where the country ends and the city now begins.
Jul 27, 2021
Jul 27, 2021 at 1:59 AM UTC
you can find me in old picture frames, hidden
in a box at the bottom of your basement.
you can find me in telephone booths, scouring
my pockets to find the meaning of change.
you can find me in the font of signed birthday cards, stylized
and nonsensical.
you can find me in your ashtray, waiting
to be reborn.
you can find me at the bottom of your coffee cup, a sludge
of accumulated words that fell out of your mouth
each time you go in for another sip.
you can find me in the pages of your youth, smiling
at the illusion of time.
you can find me in the lyrics to each song
that come on in your car as you drive, alone at night
that make you think of how we were.
you can find me underneath the carpet, a stain
that refuses to come out no matter how hard you scrub.
you can find me at the beginning of your dream, camouflaged
with scenes of sirens, snakes and skeletons singing lullabies
that make you forget what you dreamt of when you finally awaken.
you can find me through the eyelet on your door, as i float
above your head the moment you consider opening it.
you can find me in every embrace, every kiss, every promise
you choose to let fade from your needle-pointed memory.
you can find me in your shoe, a rock
that makes each audacious step feel uncomfortable.
you can find me in the ditch, roadkill
that quickly passes you by as you mumble a
“what was that?” to no one in particular.
you can find me beneath the apologies you didn't mean
and the iloveyous you forgot to say.
you can find me amidst the scattered shards of glass
that scour the linoleum floor from the glass of water
that you dropped in a bout of thirst at midnight.
you can find me underneath your pillow case, whispering
reminders like sweet love songs for the self.
the pieces i have left are ripe and over-cooked,
i can only resign myself to the fact
that you may never choose
to look.
Jan 8, 2014
Jan 8, 2014 at 7:28 PM UTC
Realization Alliteration Poem
4/23/2013
Radical reforms
Revealed and revered
Reveled in without reserve
Reject rest until wrongs righted
Resistance looks radiant red like radishes
Recently reequipped with righteousness reacting like radiation
Rowdy crowds race like rabbits to meeting rooms
Rain and rapiers can't quell rampaging rallies without recourse
Reserves have been replicated, ready to razzle and rebuke, revenge
Reclaim rusted roofs of the ruins, wrecked in rural rubble's roots
Reality's reign can't be reversed so remember it, refuse to relive it
Run from its reach, relying on the rare reward you've received, a refuge
Recognize that regimes rotate routinely like roadkill riding on rail-cars drinking with rancid rats
Reach for the receiver, become a redeemer, referee your own rehab, require resolute ripples - realization.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 3:12 AM UTC
Sometimes I feel like roadkiill.
seen by all,
Acknowledged by some,
loved by none
Save the unseen and forgotten
Oct 10, 2012
Oct 10, 2012 at 3:02 PM UTC
I'm a drink driver !
I'm driving a bus.
It's the bus you wanna be on,
and going full ******
I'm driving the Karma bus
So it's time to decide
if your a passenger,
or roadkill tonight.
Nov 23, 2012
Nov 23, 2012 at 2:52 PM UTC
Your lying there, dead.
Corpse slowly rotting,
flies hover around
your mutilated flesh.
Sorry but
your life, your existence
wasn't as important
as someone getting to work on time.
Ironically
it's now that your dead
lying there
that we take the time to swerve
and not hit you.
Sep 5, 2014
Sep 5, 2014 at 6:36 PM UTC
I should have skeletons in my closet,
but they've yet been stripped of their flesh,
and I've let them loose in this small town
for a game of hide 'n' seek.
She returned a set of my pajamas, unwashed,
her intoxicating scent lingering on hooks in my closet
where her aroma constructs an illusion.
I bury my face in them,
feeling my damp cheeks pressed into her *******
reaching down below where my hand grasps her posterior
where it takes a firm shape in the loose garments.
I dig into the scent until I go crazy;
I tell myself I'll wash them next week.
I should have skeletons in my closet,
but she's taken it on the road,
in a small town parading it down empty streets
where I can see it clearly,
her oblong sunglasses darkly obfuscating
what I perceive to be her pejorative gaze,
over a narrow ivory face,
sandy blonde hair flowing in the wind.
(I still feel, yes, that smooth pale face cupped within my trembling hands, that sandy hair tangled around my fingers reaching up the back of her neck, pressing her face more towards mine)
I look for the shallow dent
in her ubiquitous red minute two-door seater
on the passenger side, where she was gently T-boned
by a student driver practicing their three-point turn,
and the smiley-face lemon-scented air freshener
dangling from her rear-view mirror,
having lost its freshness years ago.
(I still see, yes, us in that hardware store parking lot,
in the closed evening hour,
sitting cramped in the passenger seat,
her knees on either side of me,
our shirts off and skin warm and sweaty, nervous,
trembling, trembling, lips aching and souls yearning--
where were we headed to again?)
I look for it so intensely,
I forgot my goal was to never see it again.
Young love looking for little things in a small town.
For years I play this game of hide 'n' seek,
and part of me should realize
that at some point she got up from her hiding spot
and moved on with her life.
(and no, I won't look at her engagement photos,
nor the photos of her newborn child,
nor the Happy Anniversaries and the congratulatory sentiments--
I can see them without social media's derision)
I still scan the streets
like a vulture over roadkill,
yet I thought I was the one
engraved into the grainy streets
where she commutes over my remains.
I should have skeletons in my closet,
but I let them walk out of my life
so I can chase them all over town.
May 22, 2016
May 22, 2016 at 11:02 PM UTC