"southbound" poems
Seductive wayward hands
Like silk, soft to the touch
Travel down her lustrous skin
Southbound too their destination
Lips, neck combine in passion
Warm breath on the neck
Turns into sultry slow kisses
She grips his hair tightly
Her soft moans reverberate in his ear
As his fingers glisten with her lust
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 12:24 AM UTC
The distant hollow of the high mountain pass
swallows the setting sun as it steals away southbound
behind the coastal mountain's tangerine sunset hued silhouettes
Mulberry plashed shadows pointing northward
across the evergreens outstretched dimming,
beneath the waning fade of each fleeting eventide
Sundown ebbing asunder the wafting daylight,
each gloaming of the day, helplessly a moment sooner past,
transfixed further south beyond yesterday's passing azure
The lazy days of summer escape unbounded,
nomadic as the sea I've seen sail away before;
evanescent as the beauty of the bloom summer days beheld
and the memory of the fragrance they exhale
The nebulous weight of the gravity is consciously denied
by the truths a human heart beholds
A moment’s epiphany afflicts like a rogue wave in a calm sea;
the only thing my heart ever wanted remains out of reach
Everything my heart needs consciously surrendering
to the poignant passing moment's beauty,
the falling sun at distance sets more suddenly now
Lost in the undeniable certainty
life's imminent season's change
Eyes drawn stubbornly from presence to a sky so far away,
knowing there'll be no restitution for the welling sense of loss...
A bitter sweet song mummers in the silence of the absorbing spell,
summer's sun stained pages of watermarked soul scribbles,
time tattooed reparation for the indelible ache
of a harsh grey winter loneliness
Perhaps too familiar, this whelming Déjà vu
that tears my soul; that tugs at these roots
but cannot sever their sacred grasp
But for now, eyes fixed to the sun's
inevitable tightening tether hence —
to wear weary each fraying thread's impending break
Each sunset leans a deeper angle southward
as it slips down through the firwood shadows;
illuminating other faraway latitudes
far beyond the distant horizon skies
The preordained continuum unfolding what will be ...
someone you used to know ... September 11, 2017 ... 7:30 PM
Sep 14, 2017
Sep 14, 2017 at 11:41 AM UTC
school starts soon
smoking joints on the weekday afternoon
in a sidelined shady
freight car, property of
Norfolk Southern
debating if this car will be
northbound or southbound
and ************ our fantasy
where we want to be taken
knowing full well maybe one of us -
(and they all looking at me)
will get out of this car and live to
see foreign places without having to
return in a body bag
we argue lazy who should go get the beer,
collect the quarters and sweaty dollar bills
and **** if I am not reappointed
leader of the beer fetching
besides it’s my
tan lab panting needing water so it’s my
responsibility and the nasty liquor store owner don’t hate me that much as the others so he’ll sell me beer without too much **** talk (some for sure)
asking where I’m laying low on a **** hot day like this one
tell him i’m getting on a train getting out of this two bit town which makes him reminisce and ask which direction
could be northbound could be southbound
hell could be west
but for sure won’t be
going eastbound
cause I seen the Atlantic and didn’t like it
too **** big and too **** cold,
too **** mean
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 1:16 PM UTC
A day recedes,
I'll chase down one more night
A lamed and hobbling Spring
tries to outrun the tide
of all the misspent months
and all this wasted time
The northern breeze sings cold,
it sighs through tattered topsails
sea of questions waits.
schools of unanswered voicemails
My footfalls share the sidewalks,
steady,
sure. Still young but glimpsing old and stumbling
Walking outside
soaked lungs need some new air
I'm nervous and shaking
fold the map, don a blank stare
my days wearing on
fill 'em up with a fool's words
I'm saltwashed, stuck and
peeling paint off my memory
for now.
A day's been seized--
a metered length of life
Can't place a price on Fall
and can't outrun the tide
of these layered seasons
as his time unwinds
The eastern wind comes hard
and shreds through mended mainsails
river of answers dried
so ask the waving cattails.
His footfalls know the sidewalks
leaking
down sidestreets' asphalt tributaries
Walking around
A hitch in his slow gait
A ghost of our town
shuffles on with a fixed gaze,
his days playing out,
As he strides down the sidewalks
his life plays a film,
flashing bright on glazed eyeballs
And I'm southbound,
4 p.m. driving Orange Street
completely drowned--
--swore I woke up in Gimli,
Manitoba January
seared into my youthful memories
I'm freezerburnt
Autumn heat, don't leave me
I'll hold your hair if you're feeling sickly,
then drive back home.
Autumn heat, don't leave me now.
...Autumn heat, don't leave me now.
May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 at 11:51 AM UTC
Took me to the wrong end of the Mississippi
Blown north from the whistling blues
Dreamt that sweet sound of saxophones
Coloring St. Claude Avenue
Banana leaves melted into evergreens
Where the swamps finally ran cold
Through the mountain ranges of the lakes, and banjos of the plains
Where the countryside grew quiet and old
I grew up on the wrong end of the Mississippi
But now I’m taking that southbound train
Oh honey don’t ask me how I’ve been
It’s a restless, lonesome pain
Nov 27, 2017
Nov 27, 2017 at 1:35 PM UTC
The M6 is slow southbound north of Lymm.
Queuing likely Junctions 4 through to 3.
Accident on the slip-road at Strensham
South. Rubberneckers slowing just to see.
Busy clockwise on the M25.
Overturned tanker - now down to one lane.
Rush-hour traffic, best avoid the drive.
M62 heavy westbound again.
Ongoing road works on the A1 (M).
High sided vehicles avoid the Forth
Bridge. Reports of a breakdown just come in
For those leaving the M5 heading north.........
Felicity comes, I turn off the dial
The traffic has cleared - if just for a while.
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 2:30 PM UTC
When I first met Skully,
I was an ingenue in a silly fragile plastic body--
a nursery flat, a starter bed,
not yet Anne Of Queer Gables
magnificently not giving a ****
Back then,
I believed that Skully was stuffed like a bell pepper,
jammed to bursting with thoughts, dreams and
wisdom on every subject;
I didn't know, as we lay together under the ceiling fan,
that he was as vacant and distant as outer space.
He PEZed me kisses, bought me roomsful of useless junk,
and twisted me silly like a bonsai tree.
I let him.
Daydream starlets and archery targets both have curves,
and sit still for the incoming--
I spent a decade with Skully that way,
as if I'd done it with a porcupine and was proud of the damage.
Now, he sits like an unfortunate date brought to dinner--
big-eyed as a girl, smiling too much,
and adding nothing to the conversation.
Still, I can't bear to throw him out,
and so the dogs lug him around like a trophy,
scoring and striping him with their joyful teeth marks
and losing his mandible under the fold-out sofa.
My girlfriends tolerate him.
After all, he's dead, and won't start any stupid crap about threesomes.
The next door kids ask for him sometimes,
and they bowl him at empty pop bottles in the driveway.
I confess, though,
that late at night, when it's stormy, and I'm alone,
I pause before bouncing him down the basement stairs, and I say,
"Thank you, Skully,
for keeping me from having to be alone
in the years before I bloomed into my need for heart, flesh, soul,
and not just solid bone."
Then I lay one on his grinning kisser
and even add a little tongue
just to tease him
for the lack that made me leave him like a southbound bird
Sep 28, 2025
Sep 28, 2025 at 12:07 PM UTC
It is where it is, not where you are...
Switched this week from ice coffee,
Back to hot, on September Thirteenth.
The chain busted,
No Adirondack throne, no audiences of
Southbound geese, my new ******** fans,
No **** arrogant deer
Pitying the stupid humans,
Occupying their lands.
No racing rabbits, crickets underfoot,
And in the house,
No raccoons bigger than a colt.
No just living, breathing eyes, seeing paradiso,
No place for god to come visit to chill,
And ask for atonement for chemical weapons
No bay waves soulfully soothing,
No sun, no cherries by command,
The breeze, voila, a nasty cold wind,
The bath-waves ain't no **** substitute,
Not-Near good enough,
No matter how hard I splash.
**** right I was worried.
I lifted up my eyes to the mountains—
From where will my poetry come from?
From men.
From women.
From you-reminding me,
It is where it is, not where you are...
It is here in the unread tragedies,
The wails so plain, repetitive,
The screams that never cease, the
Poems, yours, that deserve ten thousand likes,
But die ignored, despite, my best efforts.
It is in the newspapers,
Chroniclers of our daily,
Inhumanity,
And papal words, that lift a jew's heart,
That poems get birthed.
It is in the woman's dictums
About doing this and that
And where that is most preferred.
Point made. Quitting time.
It is where it is, not where you are...
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 10:37 AM UTC
The absorbent two-ply quilted southern sky
was soaking up the pre-dawn rays
as we were pushing our broken green four-wheeled machine
southbound on Bruce B. Downs
taking up the curbside lane
Our shirts were becoming stained with humid profanities
despite the fan blade traffic throwing a slight breeze
We were slurping brackish blacktop steam from the air
plodding like the Hillsborough toward our destination
My mind was already sauntering back toward a broken green futon
sitting in the section-eight, eviction evaded, apartment
Out the window cross-bred ducks were lording over
scrawny, pseudo-feral worm host cats
for which the knockabout neighbors kept a litter box outside
Jan 20, 2011
Jan 20, 2011 at 6:45 AM UTC
The punctual , eleven forty southbound train whistle's through our hometown of Palmetto ! Please tell the good folks of Montgomery , Mobile and New Orleans that I said hello !
Feb 15, 2016
Feb 15, 2016 at 11:54 AM UTC
Sploosh!
An interweaving stream of fluid burgundy falls fast
Slipping from the tip of this crystal clear glass
Flowing down through gravity 'till it makes contact with the exquisite white spongy strings
strung together for the sole purpose of sale.
"Shoot!"
She exclaims
As she seeks to supplement a spill with her own soul
not noticing that neither wine nor bleach
stop the spinning cycle from spiraling down
southbound
Feb 4, 2010
Feb 4, 2010 at 9:57 PM UTC
maelstrom meltdown on Third Avenue
<•>
the crushing came from nowhere external,
walking calm, southbound on Third Avenue, 7:00am,
found myself lost, slumped up against an unopened bank
copious weeping an acceptable addition to the malignant,
maelstrom meltdown turmoil, turbulence,
such tumult that weighed so-heavy that my disordered confusion recognized no boundaries of shame,
all chaos fission fussing into fusion
new friends, passerby's all, asking, even pleading,
offering water, coffee, solace with milk, counseling kindness,
the inexplicity, thereof, a suited man, so normally workbound;
the timidity, to inquire what's wrong, fearful of an answer's danger,
the enormity, thereof, worse, the hollowness of any responsive words
there lay I, till the police asked me to move along
or be arrested; I moved on for was I not already arrested?
my vortex, center of a swirling eddy,
a wind whipped maelstrom whirlpool,
shortly to consumed, bedlam no more, and the blood in me revererbrates that mournful prayer music of my child that cohabits,
never departs or wavers,
n'ere ceases or changes,
Les Miserables
"Bring Him Home"
supplanting the desperation of a living sin,
mine own breathing sounds
as I said,
the crushing came from nowhere external
<•>
for Steve and Tonya
Jul 16, 2017
Jul 16, 2017 at 2:04 PM UTC
Buzzing brains. Familiar clots,
I'll slur my way through second thoughts
blot out doubts with distilled friendships
roll tonight into tomorrow's
bottled sleep
Counting sheep until the ground leaps up
to kiss these puckered features,
I'll appease habit with sacrificial dreams.
Face lowered
head under-
neath; the miles fold into a hood.
Long-distance.
**** tired.
of bleeding small amounts for greater good.
Quaking hands. Familiar shakes,
Five years remembered--fish for dates
Blurring hands held, smudging smiles
cloud last night under today's
soaked, waking sleep
Counting months until a year is up
then fade out of the foreground
and appeal for a new picture to see
Hands folded
in pockets
I'm southbound. Quench my thirst. Walk back home
Long distance
still learning
what it's like to face a year out here alone.
Jun 5, 2013
Jun 5, 2013 at 11:42 AM UTC
*Let's you and I pretend that we are pirates
And we'll both sail away
I'll grab the treasure map
You raise the mast, step on the gas
We'll split all our take in what ever we make
Leaving the sun behind in our wake
Let's you and I pretend that we are pirates
And the highways Southbound lane will be our sea
We'll chart out a course for far distant shores
Pillaging this world in search of lost pearls
Setting our sails for free
Pirates Pretend, you and me*
Apr 19, 2015
Apr 19, 2015 at 5:11 PM UTC
Have you heard?
A case of the foggy brain has been goin round
Downtown
Even southbound.
Be mindful of the creepy fog
It will invade even the clearest of minds.
It starts in the neck and works it's way to the madulaobingota,
It seeps into the crevices of the brain
Till it's invaded the whole **** thing.
You must be pleading
"There has to be something that someone can do? Shirley a nurse, a doctor, or even a lobotomy would do!"
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news
But not a single thing
But hope for a
Sunny day to clear the mind slime away.
I have it!
That is the answer my friends!
Hope
Even on the rainest of days
When the case of the foggy brain is not yet at bay,
Don't lose hope
For the sun will eventually
Come your way
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 11:01 PM UTC
morning snow –
a canyon wren singing
just above silence
--
skimming
the belly of a storm front –
southbound geese
--
in the hollow
of an oak tree –
hollow of a nest
.
Nov 1, 2011
Nov 1, 2011 at 12:29 PM UTC
In these strange lands I deposit my sleep
into a small percentage of the neat twenty-four boxes in which I can make a memory.
The clock runs 24 instead of two swings of 12.
I wish it could all be black and white
not Greenscale.
In the movement of the long white snake through the ocean of soft hills,
they glide up and down like a bloated wave in the See.
I stare blankly in disbelief at the rows of wise buildings.
As if they are unreal, like a theme park.
Rivers quietly saw through the hard earth
knowledgeable trees gather at her banks.
Vast and soft.
Green clouds of leaves.
And the airplanes slice through the heavens
leaving a trail of white blood.
Raging with accents of gold from the sun.
As she makes her journey to you, westbound, southbound, homebound.
Her last fingers of light drizzling inside me like golden syrup to sweeten the foul, rotten darkness that feasts on my starved love.
But I shall find sweet redemption, in these strange Femdlände of my blood.
Apr 29, 2015
Apr 29, 2015 at 2:38 AM UTC
One eye lined a rippling void in our favor
Two lights aimed to dither coherence astray
A spark may be one
A pyre, another
Two methods by which we may aptly narrate
These volumes which artifice rendered impassive
Some lifetimes ago
As if carved out of stone
Upon faces that masons could not replicate
We taxed ourselves harsh by indulging old spirits
But graver the crime was to give them a name
The deepest transgression of all, incorporeal
Our memories in the end gave us away
Yes, nostalgia seeps in through the gaps in our logic
To shepherd the currents beneath those blue waves
As if tides could be altered by such visitation
And oceans stood frozen with forces concealed by
Some gravities borne of celestial weight
Reluctant to wake and depart Colorado
My surrogate mother
Our canvas to paint
Expressions whipped dry by the skirt of her leather
And eardrums wrung pierced by the crags and the scree
If I leave now this portal may vanish forever
I could leave my sins here in the chill of the Springs
Release them down mineshaft chutes long since abandoned
In futile attempts to abscond the unclean
And rise to leave haunts of offenses unstated
To come crawling back from the dead
Southbound with me
Hold out, I was told
With arms to receive
You'll make sure to keep your hands steady for me
I'm soaked to the core with my soul and voice breaking
With eyes for your heart and its formless cascade
And my pail with dozens of holes to redeem
An abundance of squalls brewed behind both those seams
The light crosses your path
And you won't look away
When I question by which laws such mirrors are made
And it all seems so cruel that we're drawn here to suffer
To be teased and transfixed by what glimmers remain
I can drum up what strengths I have left to ignite you
I'll shout even louder when you forget your name
I'll relearn every way that I've known how to love you
But we're taught to process what we cannot maintain
Yes, our hearts are irreparably torn in this way
Sep 23, 2016
Sep 23, 2016 at 8:29 PM UTC
A whisper of questions, far twinkling light
Seems like heaven's a'near with folly delight
In rage, I'm running, wading through vacuums
Confused emotions, all shadowy glooms
No stopping now, I pant with sweat
Desperate for answers, not painful regret
Step three, step four, the move finds no sleep
All chains and bondages, this life seem to keep
Find meaning, find purpose, no reasonable doubt
As mist, yes mystical, this life will head south
Like winter surprise, the dew and the frost
Bites eagerly at a soul so wastefully lost
Why darkness, not light? This seems but a game
Haunted by lies, unpurposeful shame
Delight, sweet caress, how precious such needs
Lost in this world of selfish and greeds
Alas, a green exit, blinding light, my eyes seeing
That tunnel, yes peaceful, of rest in peace being.
Jan 17, 2013
Jan 17, 2013 at 8:59 AM UTC
Northbound sittin on a southbound train
No money in your pocket and youre left sittin in the rain
Two way ticket down a one way track
Don’t know where youre headed but you know you aint comin back
It feels like ive reached the bottom but its
Still a long way down
So I ask, the bartender
To pour me another round
Stars don’t have to fall for you to know that its night
Whats left is all you’ve got when youre all out of the right
Started at the ending don’t know where to begin
And so it goes, no one knows about the shape I'm in
It feels like ive reached the bottom but its
Still a long way down
So I ask, the bartender
To pour me another round
(CJM 2013)
Aug 30, 2013
Aug 30, 2013 at 12:30 AM UTC
My words always come to that stuttering stop.
Hurts hidden past their dates
don't pop, don't explode, scream
or make a scene. The *** bubbles over
and the hot rivulets swim southbound.
There are never more than two.
Colourless, without sound; inside, the reaction
of heat energy, raising temperature
and changing state. My thoughts evaporate.
Escape.
I regain myself and carry on
the endless day and stagger home to bed
routines don't change, and in my head
I hear your voice and ask you
what are we doing, what is this madness,
why are you doing this to me when I...
I...
Oct 9, 2013
Oct 9, 2013 at 12:25 PM UTC
liver is nothing new
but liberty is a finer stew
james of the woods
john of the cage
rest in these glades for awhile
for rest stops abound
only on a southbound train
heading nowhere
near your destination
you undress the millions of dollars
you have hidden in your sneakers
your feet are bankers
and your shoes undertakers
remnants of the ancient soul
drown in the pounding rain
you whiten your hair in the snow
and wipe off the dust and dirt
that’s gathered round the stove
frozen like compound interest
between two relative fingerprints
this mist is just as close as your nose
and your feet are two dancing elephants
engaged in drunken rhetoric
they fund two lumpy stockings
with a legacy of coal
and **** these empty cottages
rented in the heat of summer
till the blackest ashes turn white
you churn the butter
through the dampness of the night
until the rose of morning
is ready to ignite
the flight of the seagull
comes with no warning
and the sound of a star falling
is what whets your appetite
Oct 17, 2018
Oct 17, 2018 at 12:05 PM UTC
In the one thousandth
Subatomic cohesion
You walked close to me
Spoke softly
Opened the other realms door
Set the red dragonflies free
Fluttering wings
Brushing entities
Orphic embrace
Commixing like lace
Weaving
Siezeing
The southbound breeze
May 28, 2016
May 28, 2016 at 1:32 AM UTC
Anchormen every morning
Famed KC's three-sided hub.
Traffic northbound,
Southbound,
Eastbound,
Westbound.
Honks and blinkers all resound
In one ear and out the other,
Distant memories of highways
I'd never traveled nor cared about.
Now you've brought them meaning
I've passed over every road
Racing to you
Then cruising and dreading visits' endings.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 10:49 PM UTC