"roadway" poems
I saw a brinjal...
I saw a brinjal...
I saw it on the roadway...
Yes it caught my eye,
As I walked on by...
There must be a vendor...
With desperation on his face...
Who thought I would buy you...
And he dropped you on the road...
You're nutritional!
You're nutritional!!
You're nutritional!!!
It's true!
There must be a vendor,
With a smile on his face,
When he thought I would buy you,
But it's time to face the truth...
I shall never ingest you...
May 30, 2014
May 30, 2014 at 2:52 AM UTC
You're just a tiny bit minimalist in your own unique way
a white star I have to squint to see in daytime sky
not a Mercedes five point but a Nissan Micra car
you park neatly in a three point turn by my netsuke
and put a circular dent on my platonic furniture
Your two humble rooms devoid of any bold sculpture
except a fold-out table and a miniature bubble chair
and a futon for a bed which is troublesome to share
you draw the line at adornments but allow a wallflower
A bulb in a bowl is your ornamental garden feature
mealtimes a nibble on grated carrot celery cucumber
you run so long on empty you're an eco friendly teacher
stretching out the energy is a passion of my lover
engaging in lessons on sustaining a resourceful nature
Your shoes two pointe ballet slip ons easy to care
barely there g-string thin cotton underwear
nothing loud to upset your understated figure
slight as a pin drop your bottom's semi-derrière
sits so light on feet I'd swear you float on air
I rarely get to hear you come before you're in my hair
with a voice pitch high as a smitten kitten's purr
your upper reaches get a score sized single 'A'
nice when it fits into our schemes of feng shui
I carry your bundle home on the roadway rivers of light
yet you only burn one ray of candle power at night
born of scintillating atoms which flow along each vein
containing so much love without clutter in your frame
a brave star small as wings formed of minuscule wire
flutters in your eyes with minimal flare
but deep desire
Jul 24, 2014
Jul 24, 2014 at 12:54 PM UTC
In the wildest place,
my mouth stopped with stars,
I came to the end of words;
the parched mint, bitter
paper plank
where I lost my balance,
on one foot teetering
along that roadway where gold-
flashing fireflies stand effortlessly
on air
to send their fragile signal
out,
every night a nocturne
of one less
til I and the last firefly
danced alone
in the wildest place
sending our last ignition
out
to find our kind
or else fall quiet
and one
with the wild that
will neither be spelled
nor known.
©joyannjones June 2023
Aug 17, 2025
Aug 17, 2025 at 9:32 AM UTC
So many shoulders rounded
softly, the moans always climb
to fall around every curve
following distant stretches
lost in the rhythm of rain
on a roadway far too long
for a poet whose muse sings
sweetly in the dark of night
from just beyond the sunrise
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 11:48 PM UTC
In the parched path
I have seen the good lizard
(one drop of crocodile)
meditating.
With his green frock-coat
of an abbot of the devil,
his correct bearing
and his stiff collar,
he has the sad air
of an old professor.
Those faded eyes
of a broken artist,
how they watch the afternoon
in dismay!
Is this, my friend,
your twilight constitutional?
Please use your cane,
you are very old, Mr. Lizard,
and the children of the village
may startle you.
What are you seeking in the path,
my near-sighted philosopher,
if the wavering phantasm
of the parched afternoon
has broken the horizon?
Are you seeking the blue alms
of the moribund heaven?
A penny of a star?
Or perhaps
you've been reading a volume
of Lamartine, and you relish
the plasteresque trills
of the birds?
(You watch the setting sun,
and your eyes shine,
oh, dragon of the frogs,
with a human radiance.
Ideas, gondolas without oars,
cross the shadowy
waters of your
burnt-out eyes.)
Have you come looking
for that lovely lady lizard,
green as the wheatfields
of May,
as the long locks
of sleeping pools,
who scorned you, and then
left you in your field?
Oh, sweet idyll, broken
among the sweet sedges!
But, live! What the devil!
I like you.
The motto 'I oppose
the serpent' triumphs
in that grand double chin
of a Christian archbishop.
Now the sun has dissolved
in the cup of the mountains,
and the flocks
cloud the roadway.
It is the hour to depart:
leave the dry path
and your meditations.
You will have time
to look at the stars
when the worms are eating you
at their leisure.
Go home to your house
by the village, of the crickets!
Good night, my friend
Mr. Lizard!
Now the field is empty,
the mountains dim,
the roadway deserted.
Only, now and again,
a cuckoo sings in the darkness
of the poplar trees.
5.1k
ALL things uncomely and broken, all things worn out
and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lum-
bering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the
wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the
deeps of my heart.
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great
to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll
apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like
a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in
the deeps of my heart.
4.2k
oh boy i
fight so hard to stay awake
as your fingers trail across me
you make my skin shudder and shake
you see my day was long and muddy
i can't quite wash it all away
liquor didn't rinse it either
but please don't turn away cause
i can make your earth quake
disrupt precious soil and tear patterns in the roadway
a tornado to the heavens and a free fall down on me
i won't let you regret coming home tonight
baby
please
Jan 14, 2015
Jan 14, 2015 at 10:39 PM UTC
The impetus
Of being
Always on the run
Through pinwheel eyes
Those standing by
The mystic roadway : River
Blues yet to be brushed
or in blush
Of evening chill's breathing
a canvas like windows dreaming felt
All mindful
And chockfull O'
Wonder
Then ponder
Yonder "window breaks"
Past the wilderness' sleep
Bone heavy wood
Umber earth
Past whoosh and rush of liquid
Folding on itself / a soundtrack
Listen now
Pedestrian be
Mindful of the cautionary whales
Old Ahab’s yell
Obsessions
Fears
Or loathing.
If one is drowning in one's sleep
Look wildly
widely
Blithely
Down river
Or up there beyond finger's point
Sidewinder snake journeys
Until sky and below it
All meet
The distance
Now only a line
Coalescing what is beyond
Our ability to see
Far and away
Evanescent
Effervescent
Ever after
River. Life.
Here we are
And proud
The free spirit is fluent
With the rapid rivers loud
Always on the run
Currents like a child's curiosity ...
How then,
When or why
does it end ?
Where do we go?
Like most things existing,
Will lead to the high art /
love's deep oceans...
We often forget to seek
And mind
the sublimations/
d¬¬rift wood.
So then,
Begin with a dot .
A speck of dusk
A burst of light
A starry sky,
pieces to mastering
Raging fragility of water
Liquid undulations
Folding itself in / volumes
Or falling from on high
A droplet cry
Then the lightning
(crash or bloom)
From the heavens
like electric rivers
So brilliantly
Festoons
Where do we go (so low)
There and here / underfoot /
Over north / southern sleep
To oceans twilight deep?
Go wrapped or map-less
Or no.
Up
Way
Up yonder
There up there
Everywhere
All without fear...
My heart like the river yearns
To go toward the sun
A flow /
the beating drum
Always on the run
And
Yet
Still
Here.
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 3:58 AM UTC
If you drive down route 235,
the lonely parallel line of route 5,
running through St. Mary's County, Maryland,
between the intersection of Old Three Notch road
and St. Andrew's Church road,
and the liquor store at the corner of Mattapany--
you must do so with a fat wallet,
and a growling stomach,
who barks at the flashing signs
of the sparkling chain restaurants--
wafting their familiar scents out the windows
and onto the busy street.
Utterly beleaguered every which way by these olfactory factories,
your mouth waters and your wallet lightens
as the tantalizing sensations
permeate your vehicle.
So you cave;
another lost soul vacates the street at Restaurant Alley,
under the prowling searchlights
and the intoxicating smells lingering like a dense fog;
You linger in your purgatory with glee.
You exit satisfied, patting your abdominous belly
and lifting your smiling face to the sky
in thanks to the gluttonous gods
who rain down these chain restaurants
from the heavens.
A satisfied sigh seeps out of loose lips,
barely hanging on to your fleshy face,
so ruddy and fat.
You act like your stop was something novel,
like it wasn't routine to acquiesce to these temptations;
you return to your car to continue your roamings
down restaurant alley.
Sadly, a full stomach won't stifle a querying nose,
and your senses are soon at it again;
just as the waiters and waitresses,
cooks and busboys--
are back at the window, leaning outside
with their clamorings and bustlings and cookings--
You pretend to entertain willpower as your copilot,
but even if that were so,
your senses would still be at the wheel,
with your mind bound and gagged in the trunk.
Restaurant Alley goes on for miles and miles and miles,
seemingly endless in the permeating fog of
burgers and pancakes and pasta and chicken and fries and burgers and soda and ice cream and beer and pasta and wine and America and pancakes and steak and appetizers and desserts and entrees and specials and kids menus and burgers and chicken and pasta and fries and burgers and ice cream and salad and burgers and soda and eat and eat and eat and eat and eat!
There's nothing to eat;
there's nothing to do but eat in Restaurant Alley,
on route 235 in St. Mary's County, Maryland.
So fasten your seat belt,
and loosen your waist belt,
and take a doomed trip down the endless roadway--
where you are dragged, shackled to food chains
that haul you from the perdition that is the lobby's waiting room
to be seated with loved ones at the mercy seat of Ambrosia.
Mar 5, 2016
Mar 5, 2016 at 5:02 PM UTC
Three dead birds on highway squashed,
Roadway washed with corpses discarded as carrion,
To be chewed upon by companions in a world of brothers,
In a world of blood and guts,
A lone magpie was seen,
A sure purveyor of doom,
Gloom and sorrow,
For birdies splattered,
No tomorrow,
Perhaps they saw him too,
Didn't show him due respect,
They'll never know if they had regrets!
Livvi Kent 09/06/2013
Jun 9, 2013
Jun 9, 2013 at 3:10 PM UTC
****** in a crinoline,
****** of Solitude,
spreading immensely
like a tulip-flower.
In your boat of light,
go -
through the high seas
of the city;
through turbulent singing,
through crystalline stars.
****** in a crinoline
through the roadway's river
you go,
down to the sea!
2.3k
I went to the river
once there, I wandered in
I went to the river
and washed away my sin
i came back from the river
I found my truck up on the road
i came back from the river
ready to re-load
I'm not sure if this is how to say it
drinking with the devil takes it's toll
you have to walk away instead of staying
for if you stay the devil gets your soul
you can live a life of excess if you want to
an endless circle pushed to the extremes
the party seems like it is never ending
but when it does, you're left with broken dreams
you can reload if you want but just be cautious
the devil knows your weakness after all
he knows you wash your sins out in the river
but, he also knows, one day you'll hear his call
I went to the river
once there, I wandered in
I went to the river
and washed away my sin
i came back from the river
I found my truck up on the road
i came back from the river
ready to re-load
you have a choice when you go to the river
do you follow it, and just avoid the road
get on a boat and see where it is leading
or just have a splash, and meet at the cross road
life is full of twists and turns and effort
the river is just a stop along the way
but, the devil knows you never really mean it
once you wash your sins, you head on back to play
in the end you'll end up on the roadway
the river bed is dry and is long dead
the sins you washed away there are just dust now
because there was no truth in what you said
I went to the river
once there, I wandered in
I went to the river
and washed away my sin
i came back from the river
I found my truck up on the road
i came back from the river
ready to re-load
I went to the river
once there, I wandered in
I went to the river
and washed away my sin
i came back from the river
I found my truck up on the road
i came back from the river
ready to re-load
May 8, 2014
May 8, 2014 at 11:48 PM UTC
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
2.1k
she paints her smile on
and turns her weary thoughts to the
sunlight streaming weakly through the open door
she hesitates on the cusp of her movement
and carefully considers stepping out there
but is instead captured by
the motel balcony's chipped concrete features
it powder's the mind with years it has seen
the nineteen sixties frat boys
and the seventy's hard hitters
but that train of thought evaporates into the
open sound of his shouts from the parking lot below
she lays a trembling hand on her bag
and casts an attempt of deep gaze around the soiled room
for lingering pieces of their adventure
before stepping into the light furnace of day
the sudden appearance of the highway near at
hand tumbles into her field of perception
tonight they will be hundreds of miles north is her thought
she checks the doors lock and half stumbles to the stair
she dreads the events to unfold
dreads the hours of engine noise and his muttering
the mindnumbing noise of the radio
and the etched features of roadway benith wheel
somewhere up the road this will end
that knowledge is secure
all things change
but enduring is the cuckold of thouse who
thrive on the grieving of the unbearable
she leans her frame into the car
its japanese pleather is sticky
and she by pulling the door shut acknowledges
her departure
they move to the road
with seeming intent
a backward glance of longing is her only consolation
they are travelling once more
Nov 6, 2013
Nov 6, 2013 at 12:00 PM UTC
4AM-
a boy runs across
the four-lane roadway,
eyes like rare stones,
face burlap-creased dust,
jean shorts, a dolphin backpack
meant for someone smaller.
I track in my car,
take the exit that curves
around an abandoned encampment.
I find cement steps,
but the boy is gone.
Only smoke remains:
a hooded figure curled
in a doorway of a derelict building,
an empty tent split by knife.
The world recedes,
layered, unbroken.
another vision settling
into the mind,
a thick silence I fold
into the others.
Sep 4, 2025
Sep 4, 2025 at 11:09 AM UTC
Can you hear the buzz in the air—
the electric charge? See a flare
lighten up the roadway to your death?
Are you ready to take your last breath?
No? What a dull, boring affair...
Get out of the way, far from here!
Jul 19, 2021
Jul 19, 2021 at 10:10 PM UTC
Lotus clouds oversee a Popsicle stick roadway,
between us only dirt that, like jellyfish, echoed away
A refugee of the Imperial Court once hid in the Zhongnan.
He survived in silk rags, and would ode The Way
Moss-haired men watch Magnavox in windows,
the evangelical salesman begging them not to toad away.
Across the street, near the top floor, a freshly-ex-student
sits at his desk in an IRS building, told five hours ago to code away
A face, topped with hot pink, brandishes her crop in a field
of signs, screaming at Wall Street's old way.
A yam of a man, braving his new home in the hills,
freedom from obligation, finds a stream to wash the woad away.
Along a country road, a man with a sandpaper'd
face counts his money, having just sold whey
Lotus clouds oversee a Popsicle stick roadway,
between us only a past that, like jellyfish, echoed a way
Twenty one years have given me many names.
Call me Kyle, or the others I've borrowed away.
Feb 2, 2013
Feb 2, 2013 at 8:56 AM UTC
They only want to hear of your suffering
They only whistle while you toil
They only #treadringsonagainonyour soul
So we lay down tar and feather quill to papier-mâché a roadway from our broken heart artery and bleed the anguish out into to a milkyworldwideweb.away to cure the Treading on Agony, be numb to the likes along the highway revel in the thin line between heaven and earth let your feet rise above your head and let your hand be the rubber on the road of revelations.
Jul 17, 2015
Jul 17, 2015 at 12:36 PM UTC
It’s the morning of a different day—who knew there’d be another?
Lisa and I went on our harbor jog @ 5am—that’s nothing new.
It was, like 44°—we’re enjoying fall’s cold, refreshing bite.
Anyway, my mind wasn’t on it and I nearly stumbled over
a chunk of dark, uneven roadway, made invisible by its function.
Charles, jogging beside me, wordlessly managed to right me
without us losing a step and I smiled my thanks.
argh! I’ve got to get out of my head.
Later, in class, lulled by the comfort of the stiff, wooden chair, my eyes unfocused and the professor’s voice seemed to fade into the backdrop. Suddenly, he was asking me a direct question that seemed almost without context.
Metaphorically slapped back into focus, I scanned the room and the whiteboard for clues before awkwardly—walking the edge of catastrophe—bluffing it out, because, well, I’ve an instinctive reluctance to admit defeat with any sort of grace.
I didn’t sleep well last night. I had dreams—nothing with a defined purpose–just an amalgamate of bonfires and storms in a coastal scrubland with an odor of fresh cedar and a sense of casual vulnerability.
My attention today is like an intermittent pulse.
.
.
Songs for this:
Headz Gone West by Nia Archives
Dark Red by Steve Lacy
Nov 8, 2024
Nov 8, 2024 at 8:13 AM UTC
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 12:06 AM UTC
We sit on the fence
that surrounds the field,
Yehudit and I,
watching cows
move and munch,
sun on our heads,
hands by our sides
to help us balance.
Will the pond
be ok?
she says,
looking at me,
her eyes bright,
the smile forming,
the brown hair
gripped and ribboned.
Should be fine,
I say,
providing
there's none about,
except the ducks
and swans and dragonflies
hovering across
the water's skin.
We climb down
from the fence,
stretch our legs,
rub our backsides,
and walk off towards
the pond,
hand in hand.
My mother's suspicious,
Yehudit says,
wonders where I go
when I leave the house,
and asks: who
are you with?
and I say,
Benny,
the boy down
by the roadway,
whose father's
a forester.
What does she say
to that?
I ask,
feeling her
warm hand in mine,
her thumb rubbing
the back of hand's skin,
seemingly good,
but to her mother
no doubt,
a sin.
What do you
get up to?
she asks,
and I say:
nothing,
just walk
and see the birds
and trees
and sit by the pond
and watch the ducks
and swans
and dragonflies.
And what does she
say to that?
I ask,
sensing her perfume
(her mother's borrowed),
feeling alive,
flushing with want.
She just stares
and shakes her head
and says:
is that all?
Of course,
I say,
what else?
and she turns away
with a sigh
and that stern look
in her eye.
The pond is deserted,
except for a few ducks
and a swan
swimming around,
a dragonfly hovering
over the way.
We sit on the grass
and stare.
Then I bring her
into my side ward glance,
her body clothed
in dress of green
and black wool stockings
and whatever else beneath
I have not,
as yet,
seen.
We had *** here
a week or so ago,
back in the wooded area
out of sight,
just us alone,
except for ducks
and swans
and dragonflies
in flight.
Mar 12, 2016
Mar 12, 2016 at 3:45 AM UTC
I shall foot it
Down the roadway in the dusk,
Where shapes of hunger wander
And the fugitives of pain go by.
I shall foot it
In the silence of the morning,
See the night slur into dawn,
Hear the slow great winds arise
Where tall trees flank the way
And shoulder toward the sky.
The broken boulders by the road
Shall not commemorate my ruin.
Regret shall be the gravel under foot.
I shall watch for
Slim birds swift of wing
That go where wind and ranks of thunder
Drive the wild processionals of rain.
The dust of the traveled road
Shall touch my hands and face.
1.5k
We met three times
Over fifteen years.
The disagreement paled
In light of his diagnosis.
He unexpectedly appeared
At my door, then stood in my kitchen.
He had a few serious questions
About brotherly affections,
And after spitting into my sink
(the poor man)
He wondered if I thought less of him
For not sending cards at Christmas and birthdays.
Is that what he came to say?
Next was at our last family wedding.
He was still steady on his feet.
We were five Irish lads.
The sisters said he was the handsome one.
He was.
There are six of us posing in this final shot.
He's wearing a Lucille Ball tie,
Losened around his neck,
Yet covering the gill-like scar
Running from lobe to lobe.
His hands are buried deep
In his pants' pockets.
His smile says Good-bye.
I saw him for the last time
A few weeks later,
Standing, bent and coughing
At the intersedtion of the roadway and Nature Trail.
His rib cage raging from contortions.
He waved off an offered ride.
And then he was gone.
It took us years to get here.
Nov 8, 2024
Nov 8, 2024 at 9:47 AM UTC