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Kellen K Sep 2015
There is nothing but me
And this stoplight at the end of the universe,
Green, yellow, red
Then green again.

Independent of judgement,
From all who look on.
Their opinions don't matter,
I walk along.
There are others beside me,
Their choices their own,
But save for this stoplight,
I walk alone.

Just a blank slate
Free from doubt,
free from fear,
It's just me
and this stoplight here.
Autumn Feb 2018
We were unknowingly stuck at a broken stoplight as I was watching you dramatically mouth the words to Use Somebody by Kings of Leon. I was cracking up in the passenger seat but all of a sudden the song changes and I'm wondering why the light is still red.

We brush it aside and listen to the next song while paying close attention to the stoplight cycles.

The third song comes on and at this point everyone is aware something is up. We look around for that line up of cars and sure enough.
Cars from behind are turning around and cars in the front of us take the safe right turn instead.

It was funny.

The way all the cars reacted at the same time. As if a plane with a banner was in the sky saying: THIS LIGHT IS NOT FUNCTIONING.

All this to say that sometimes, if not always, humans are secretly on the same wavelength.
Poti Mercado Oct 2015
Sa unang limang segundo, berde.
Sabi mo mahal mo. Sige, andar.
Sa susunod na dalawang segundo, dilaw.
Magmabagal ka muna.
Pagisipan mo kung tutuloy ka pa.
Sa huling segundo, pula.
Tigil na.
Wala na.
Maghintay ka nalang.
Magiging berde rin ulit yan.
Wag ka na mag-beating-the-red-light.
Pagbabayarin ka pa ng pulis at sasabihin sa'yong, "Nakita mo namang dilaw na yung ilaw, 'di ba? Ba't tumuloy ka pa?"
At ikaw naman 'tong nagbubulag bulagang sasabihing, "Akala ko po aabot pa ako."
Akala mo lang.
Akala mo kakayanin mo pa siyang habulin pero hindi na pala.
Akala mo maaabutan mo pa siya pero nakalayo na siya.
Akala mo.
Akala mo lang.
Pero mali ang iyong akala.
Sana.
Sana pala huminto ka na.
Sana pala hindi mo na hinabol.
Sana pala noong una palang, inalam mo na.
Sana inalam mo na, na di ka na niya mahal.
Kaya nung naging berde na yung ilaw, umandar na siya.
Pero nung umapak ka na sa gas upang habulin siya,
naging dilaw na yung ilaw.
Sana doon palang, tumigil ka na.
Sana doon palang, nagdahan-dahan ka na.
Pula na 'yung ilaw.
Tigil na.
'Wag mo nang pilitin pang habulin siya.
Pero ito ang sinasabi ko sa'yo,
Sa pagkakataong ito'y maging berde na muli,
Wag **** hintaying maging pula ulit ito.
Ang mga busina ng kotse sa iyong likod ang nagsasabi sayo, "Umandar ka na. Berde na ang ilaw. Ano pa ba ang ginagawa mo?"
Umapak ka sa gas, hindi para sa kanya.
Pero para sa sarili mo.
Hannah Christina Aug 2018
Too much, too fast.
Breathless at a stoplight.
change
fast
must
go
I HAVE NO TIME
everything/everything/today/tomorrow
Always with the rushing, barely feeling, barely knowing where I am.

Now there's nothing.

It's a break, slow and stale.
What do I do?
There are four or five things maybe but none feel right and I can't bring myself to move.
I try one thing,
then another.
No drive,
meaning,
purpose,
feeling.
Not even my eyes can focus on anything.
Skipping, blinking, nothing.
Slow.

Give me back the whirlwind, or give me gravelike nothing.
Nothing is right.
I need power to feel and peace to fight or I am already dead.
Please.
I'm trusting You.
Please.
Thanks so much for reading, it means a lot.

Honestly, I'm not feeling much better for the moment.  Things were getting a bit slow this afternoon and the Gravelike paragraph applied for like two hours, but I pulled myself out of it and I'm okay now.  Let's see how long the feeling of well being lasts this time...
Madisen Kuhn Nov 2014
it’s unsettling how many people i’ve had to beg to forget me, lately. how many i’ve tried to convince that i really am as insignificant as a stranger you made eye contact with for a moment at the stoplight. for so long i was begging so many people to stay, to keep holding onto me, even if it wasn’t in their best interest. all i wanted was to be selfishly adored. now all i want is to be left alone.
Coleen Mzarriz Jul 2023
A jarring, disturbing day for a summer breeze in mid-July. The streets were covered by the footsteps of people hustling, hoping they’d be early for their 8–5 job, and babies crying when their mom left for a meeting that started at 11 a.m. And I bought my favorite coffee—a caramel latte.
 
It was as if my worn-out hands, which have been clawed out by the hand of the disrespectful ghost who’s been living inside my apartment, coveted the sun and thought it was time for him to be kissed by the summer and embraced by the coldness of the winter—it’s coming and it’s starting to cry a little.
 
Drop by drop, until my jacket seeped the harsh trickle of the rain. Terribly enough, I was standing near the pedestrian lane, and the universe ribboned the strings between me and this disrespectful ghost. Mind you, he was a stranger once. And we both looked at each other.
 
He was waiting for the bus, and I am too. He’s on the second seat, and I’m on the left, near the window. Third row. He loves music and likes to listen to it when he’s bathing. He loves writing just like I do, and he loves to hum his favorite songs just like I do.
 
He loves basketball, but he rarely plays, and he loves to daydream and has two imaginary friends. He loves to hold my hand and kiss me on the cheek. But then he died. And he smells like the earth—with thick thorns covering half of his body, bleeding through his shirt, and losing his smile.
 
But then again, the earth sent him back, and I started to mourn. I no longer know his name, but I mourn for him. It’s time for this ghost to go, and it happened that we’re both on the same bus, and he was disrespectful enough to not inform me that he’s leaving again.
 
Perhaps I’ve come to terms with the fact that tenants like him will come and go, and their loose threads will always be tied to me. I’ve yet to let go. He’s dead, and he’s now a stranger who once walked down the street.
 
My caramel latte is now lukewarm, and I threw it away, but I was early for work. What a jarring, disturbing day.
Perhaps in another universe, we’re both seated in the same row and we’re holding each other’s hands.
inggo Dec 2015
I hope you had a stoplight,
    So you could at least warn me before you GO
Bryce Jun 2018
Hello Chicago
Flat carpet-town of corn meal
steel spears at the northern junction
of Cahokia and some unknown dream

No lillies grow here sir,
no tulip fields
though there are many Dutch
a little up north
Wisconsin, dontcha' know?

Family blood rains through the Chicago river
named of the blood of a slain tribal wonder
wanders
with the roaming buffalo

I sat at the top of Sears
(Willis)
Tower and peered into the foggy distance
and made out the shores of Michigan
through Indiana
the leftover rains of a continental freeze
churned the earth to butter and carved the arteries
and bowels
of today's earthly body

And when we drove in from O'Hare
in the late hours on incessant stoplight highways
counting down the streets
thinking maybe they'll go all the way to
Mississippi
just a long row of
Concrete

I saw the brick tower
of a decrepit Frito-lay plant
where they cooked their corn and potato
into succulent
can't eat just one
little snacks

for the whole of america
to enjoy in backyard barbecues
and convenience stores
and grocery outlets
All across the planet

Now with the trucks they come and go
up to and whizzing past Chicago
on to greener states with greater relief
with hills and lakes and winding streams

Different sections of the sculpture
Cities eroding into the pleasant coasts
quaking and breaking into tiny stones
a monumental David
cracked in the gallery
bird **** corroding the silicates
unpolished and immortal
words

Chicago!
oh you mighty city you
built from sod and sweat and dew
of new morning
I see your towers
you dreamer, you
But your towers are in Dubai,
and Shanghai
now

The world moved on
and forgot everything about
that magnificent mile
burned to make you earn
new toys and fancy things
from far beyond your winding river streams

But you didn't die
amazing, how much they tried
to rust you out
to bleed you dry

no,
Chicago,
you keep your ***** rivers flowing
all the way to the Mississippi
flanked by modern Roman concrete
all the way to the great green sea
out into the puddle that surronds
the Amerigo

Chicago
don't you give up that river dream
DAEJR Feb 2013
Jesus hangs from my rearview mirror,
forced to sway from side to side to the Devil's music --
Big Brother with His ever watchful, weeping lenses.

Most nights I ignore His chimes as He bashes
other charms and mementos on silver chains,
but from the corner of my eye I pray for forgiveness

as His aura changes from red to green.
Sins and skidmarks are left behind the white line
and ***** palms -- wet and hope streaked -- drive the wheel home.
The knock was broken, sad
But in that broken knock
I knew I heard you

I hesitated.

The handle clicked
the door swung open

You were drunk
dressed in a green party dress
face to the floor
bouncy blonde hair covering your head.

You straightened yourself up
smoothed your dress
parted your hair
stumbled into my room.

Your pale face betrayed your red rimmed eyes
from tears past.
I tried not to be conceited
thinking they were for me
but secretly I knew they were

I let you flop on my bed
and lay motionless.
turning off the light
I moved beside you.
sometimes i hope this will cross the void.
berry Oct 2013
torn jeans
dimples
station wagons
shifting eyebrows
eager hands

wry smiles
chapped lips
cheap beer
deep-set eyes
pirated music

hates his birthday
stoplight-kisses
star-gazing in cornfields
****** knuckles
broken minds

lanky limbs
poetry books
scruffy faces
jet-black coffee
calloused hands that still feel soft

adventurer's heart
jumping fences
midnight tokes
always gives you hickeys
always opens your door

worn sneakers
chewed pen caps
late for work
old windbreakers
dirt under his fingernails

omniscient smirks
expensive cologne
good intentions -
but is bad with goodbyes
hates himself for making you cry

broken cigarettes
aviator shades at night
a perpetually furrowed brow
and a laugh that sounds like autumn leaves as they crunch beneath your feet

m.f.
Carmelo Antone Apr 2013
Vex
Stoplight Lynching,
Drive-by Reaping,
Soul snatching police officers,
Throat tearing teacher’s with a theme
Violence in the genes,

Scheming while masquerading what you are to be,
Playing charades because social acceptance is in,
Evolving from barbarism to greed,

Juxtaposed Imposter,
Judicially Jaded,
Think you can wield a blade,
When congressional dribble will bleed you away,

Martyr Mishaps,
Minds without maps and easy to catch,
A congregation in need creeds,

Stoplight sinning,
Drive-by finishing,
Soul savoring deities,
Throat slicing teachings,
Ignorance is a conquering king,

All encompassing,
All controlling,

Ignorance is a conquering thief, compromising our mental capacities for the sake of Almighty Themes.
Maple Mathers May 2016
I sat up in bed, wide awake.

Mere seconds separated my dreams from reality. Yet, consciousness had seized me more effectively than ice water.

I had been caged within sleep, until something ridiculous happened.  

Something ridiculous, and something real.

I sprang from the covers, pulled on a sweater, and burst out the door. All around me was silent. Life, it seemed, was not yet awake.

I took a deep breath, and began running. I ran so fast my surroundings blurred into a pallet of color; the sound, still muted.

My feet flew across the dewy grass.

I imagined myself into smaller, simpler spaces; tucked in with the ghosts. How fast could I run from my dreams? How fast could I run towards reality?

If the grass had soaked my socks, I barely knew. If the wind had serenaded my skin, I remained disembodied. The alexithymia of consciousness.

My thoughts snaked and swerved and collided in my head, but in that stretch of oblivion, a lone inference guided me.

Nothing mattered in the world but one thought.

Wake up, Maple. Wake up.

The House of Addictions was the epithet I chose.

It nestled several blocks from mine, and was the type of estate that demanded normalcy.

Upon reaching the front hedge, I examined the house; two blue paneled stories. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but this wasn’t it.

I coaxed the front door.

Locked.

I circled around to the backyard. The room I sought was on the second level. I ascended the balcony onto the porch; the room’s window stood several feet from where I could stand. There was a vacant flowerbox sitting on a ledge outside the window.

Without question, I clambered onto the deck’s railing and extended my leg into the flower box. It was a long way to fall, but I wasn’t scared. I had no choice. I clung with all my might to the window’s ledge, shifted my weight to the flowerbox leg, and plopped over the other. A scream frozen in my throat. Breathing heavily, a death grip on my perch, I crouched; the box seemed sturdy enough.

I peered through the window.

At this ungodly hour, he was most likely still asleep.

Unless.

The bed was vacated. Did this mean? I closed my eyes, took a breath.

Wake up.

Things like this did not happen – plain and simple.

A minute later, after clambering off the flowerbox and scampering back down the stairs, I rejoined the street, sprinting along with renewed vigor.

The sun glistened on the grass, the morning, ripening. Yet, I heard not the sound of birds chattering on secluded sycamores, nor my feet pattering along the sidewalk. I was immaterial. I was the wind – gliding fluidly towards that which waited.

My body was to be found at a stoplight, punching the button spastically.

But my mind had already arrived, several streets away.

The stoplight changed. I ran. Stores whizzed by, early morning traffic sheathed the street. I had to slow my thoughts, I had to separate from the stark possibilities that incased me.

I’d dreamed of his death; simple, like the twelve forget-me-nots he threw across my floor five years ago. The last expression I saw as he departed still had yet to leave his face.

Although he moved home a year ago, he never really returned.

Wake up.

I veered my course to the left, dodging through traffic, and found the street.

It was there that my mind had arrived.

This avenue was vacated and tranquil, an eclipse of the earlier. And there was that house; green and silent as ever.

Clutching a stitch in my stomach, I dove over the waist high fence and tripped on my own foot. I fell, scraping my elbows on concrete and swearing beneath my breath, but I couldn’t stop. I scrambled to my feet and staggered towards a ground levelled window.

Exhausted, I tripped again. Then several strangled events laced together. First, I tumbled to that window. I held my hands out, expecting to hit glass, but realized too late that it was open. Before that fully registered, I was toppling – headfirst – through the open window. My insides plummeted, muting my scream. I hit the bed with a sharp thump, before it tossed me to the floor.

There, I landed, **** first, mute and sprawling.

While my body congealed, my heart auditioned as drummer, and stars teased my peripheral.

The room materialized as I blinked through confusion. Softy, I sat myself upright.

His eyes were the first thing I saw.

Reality zapped me so hard I almost fell back again; he was alive, I’d woken up.

Then my senses caught up; my elbows cried, my head throbbed, and my breath rekindled in ragged crackles. As if a switch was flicked, I suddenly identified sound; the humming of cars outside, the crisp ticking of a clock, the gurgling of his fish tank. So loud – so distinct. Color sharpened and brightened.

My mind in overdrive.

He was here.

He sat on his bed, alive and well, speechless with alarm.

Oliver was shirtless, lidded only by flannel pants and black gloves. He considered me with bleeding elbows, disheveled hair, and desperate eyes. Then, the shock on his face gave way for a giant grin.

“Come here often?” He inquired. His voice, raspy with morning.

Still panting and shaking, I conjured a smile to match Oliver's.

“You’d think so. . .” I choked.

“And I’d be right, Maple.” He finished. I managed a laugh.

Nothing had changed.
Note: I dreamt about death, and awoke feeling frantic. Although logic confirmed that everything was okay, my intuition said otherwise. To remedy my unease, I channeled that dream into a story. A story I wrote when I was fourteen years old. Seven years later, the same story continues to illustrate my psyche; a story that set the foundation for Pretense (my novel). Herein, you’ll find that story; the origin and epithet of Maple and Oliver Starkweather.
Here goes?

(All poems original Copyright of Eva Denali Will © 2015, 2016)

~
David Nelson Aug 2011
Mirage

I sit up in bed and rub my blurry eyes
is that you I see coming towards me
no it's just a shadow on the wall
it was nothing more than a mirage

walking down Cypress Avenue I can't believe
there you are across the street looking my way
wait oh no it was someone else completely
it was just another wishful dream I see

buying my groceries for tonites dinner
wait is that you I seen turning the corner
I rush to the end of the aisle to find
it was your memory playing with my mind

I was sitting at the stoplight on Maple Drive
I glanced over at the car in the lane next to me
I can't believe it must be you sitting there
I waved and you frowned it was just a mirage

I see your face in every little thing I do
I just can't get you out of my mind
maybe I should check myself into the ward
I think I still have that doctor's card  
  
last nite you told me that you would go
to the prom so I bought you a nice corsage
but you weren't really there were you
it was just another dam mirage


Gomer LePoet ....
Lawrence Hall Nov 2018
A Trochee Christmas and its Several Interchangeable Anapests
                    Brought to You in Some Desperation
                   By Your Local Chamber of Commerce
                        (Second Trailer Past the Stoplight)

Christmas in the Park
Christmas on the Main
Christmas on the Lake
Christmas on the Strand
Christmas on the Square
Christmas on the Farm
Christmas on the Beach
Christmas on the Mall
Christmas in the Mall
Christmas on the Block
Christmas on the Coast
Christmas on the Gulf
Christmas on the Hill
Christmas in the Keys
Christmas on the Quay
Christmas on the Quad
Christmas on the Range
Christmas on the Ranch
Christmas in the Vale
And this year, Christmas at the 'Gras!

But no Christmas without anapests, ‘kay?
Mykarocknrollin Jun 2019
Go
Wait
Stop
Don't Go
Please wait
Let's stop
For a while
For a moment
For a lifetime
Hope this is it
Love

xoxo
inggo Nov 2015
Green, go on and love until you burst
Yellow, a warning that it might get worse
Red, stop when it really hurts
PrttyBrd Apr 2015
A quiet life
A country life
Where the grass sways in the breeze
And the hues of green signify the beginning of balmy nights
A far cry from the city
Gone are the endless vibrant lights
Gone are the 2 a.m. trips across town just because they make the best doughnuts
In this place of air almost too clean to breathe
They stroll
A traffic jam is four cars at a stop sign
Battling rules of the road with polite hat tips of "you go first"
Fast feet and hot dog carts
Italian ices on every corner
Fifty-six blocks to a destination
A world of choices
A billion footprints at a time
Stoplight crowds of sneakers and pantyhose
Everyone is invisible and naked at once
The green haired freak and the business man
The limos and the gypsy cabs
The excitement only felt in a world of possibilities
The difference between pick up trucks and bike messengers
A hundred miles for supplies
Or fifty-six blocks of everything under the sun
Soot filled pores and too much traffic
Street sounds to sleep by and a world of opportunities
Crickets and junebugs
The world closes at eight
Nightlife turns into Wal-Mart and Taco Bell
The slow pace of growing grass
The warmth of a winterless Summer
Wishing for a trip across town at 2 a.m. just because they make the best doughnuts
42515
Vanessa Gatley May 2015
Red
You stop with
Your  talking to
Me
Yellow
You yield at the thought
Of caring for me
Green
As in go for
Another
Lover\
That's not
Me
jennifer wayland May 2014
a month ago, i got in a car accident that totaled my car.
i was making a left turn at a stoplight
and the driver of an suv was paying no attention to her red light.
she barreled into the front end of my car at full speed before i even saw her coming,
and then everything was shattered glass and metal colliding and screeching tires
and suddenly my airbags were puffed out like sinister clouds and my engine sounded like a death rattle.
when i opened the door to get out, the hinges grated like a scream.

but i wasn’t hurt.
i cried for six hours that day but i went to school the next one.
everything was fine.

it's just that since then, everything in my life resembles a car crash.

i smelled burning for weeks.
i still blink and see spiderweb patterns of broken glass.
i cried for two hours when i realized i lost the cd i made
just so i could listen to my favorite songs in the car.
when i hear the song that was playing, i have to turn it off.

my father picked up the shrapnel still on the street a week later
and gave me my charred, crumpled, unreadable gravestone of a front license plate.
he straightened it out and put it on my new car when we got it.

i broke up with my boyfriend three weeks ago
and as i left i heard sirens from inside his house.
the day after that, i was talking to another boy
and his promises sounded like ambulances with no paramedics on board.

last week there was a fatal car accident half a mile from my house
and i couldn't breathe for the rest of the day after i heard.

i have to turn left at the stoplight where my own accident happened every day
and when i turn i clench my fists around the steering wheel
like it wants to tear itself out of my hands and maybe it does.

i still check left and right and left and right during turns
even when someone else is driving.

call all of this a reaction to trauma,
but honestly i don't know what's wrong with me.

all i know is i cried with frustration, immature, pathetic,
when my mother and my father couldn't find a new car.
all i know is i grieved for my ford focus
like it was my only friend in the world.
all i know is i keep talking about this accident
even though i’m even getting annoyed by myself
and my fingers on the keyboard sound just like the policeman's as he wrote up the report
as i perched on a plastic backseat, shaking, face covered with tear tracks,
waiting, alone, for my father to arrive so i didn't have to be an adult,
waiting, alone, for an explanation of why this happened to me.

all i know is everything in my life resembles a car crash,
and there are sirens in the distance,
and i'm still waiting for the smoke to clear.
performed at poetry slam 4/25/14
Jason Cole Jun 2015
His shadowy brim tipped down and in
No face to place, no trace of chin
Revolver cradled loose and low
Cylinder whirs, chambers roll

Trench coat long, dark, and lean
Black boots gleam with choicest sheen
Right hand rested 'round bony grips
Left hand fans and never slips

Who are you?
What do you want from me?
Why are you here?

Your purpose is hidden
Your message unclear

Never a word muttered
Not even a sound
It's always the same
When you come around

Got to find my keys
Get out of this place
I'm weak in the knees
My heart's losing pace

Jump in the car
Pedal meets metal
Check my rear-view
For signs of that devil

At the stoplight
A peripheral glance
A sideways glint
A figure askance

Shotgun rider
A figment with a plan
The devil may care
But my mind made the man

©Jason Cole
Invocation Nov 2018
Little girl peeling in Orange in traffic
with your favorite fingernail
I love to watch you attack
tear off the skin chunks and save them in a jar in your car because the smell makes you feel so far away
it's very clean-smelling
This cold little orange
it's a dragon ball in dragon hands
My sore throat needs this
Alan S Bailey Nov 2014
Whenever I hear the rain tapping,
Pulsing like a heartbeat, the cars tires sloshing
Pulling each torrent of water in every direction,
And sending drops flying like tiny clear pearls.
The wind like an invisible giant bends on a large tree
As the speeding train comes the cross lights flash
As red beaming orbs, like a heartbeat, off and on, off,
And so on a fast car slows so you can see forever as
Someone emerges, soon from beneath its window pane.
A dog barks and a lady screams, and then the rain,
Gleaming as the red flashing lights,
Slows to a drizzle.
donia kashkooli Jun 2016
rock on, baby.
slow dance to nirvana
at the stoplight in the deep south of
town
and never let him damage ya
BUT if he does
chip his tooth
and write on his
skin
clenching a permanent marker
in between your teeth that's
blacker than your soul
could ever be -
"I'LL SEE YOU WHEN THE SUN
SETS EAST...
DON'T FORGET ME."

-*z. vega
But I'd rather be where you are, in New York City.  
Able to feel the crisp air turning my cheeks pink
and chilling my little knuckles,
to feel you wrap around me as I shudder with every tiny snowflake.  
I'd rather be walking along the streets,
with every stoplight in our favor and every cafe open,
welcoming us in for coffee and cake.  
I'd prefer you in a long black pea coat and you prefer me in green.  
I'd rather it be near Christmas time in the empty part of the city,
where no one can hear you whisper to me.  
I'd rather the bakery scents draw us nearer and nearer,
through the park,
down the alleys,
to the heart of Manhattan
and capture us with pungent tarts and little pastries,
waiting,
wishing.  
I'd rather you kiss away the crumbs from my cheek
and feel your scruffy jaw against my neck.
BF Oct 2014
but tonight I watched the sun set.
And like a giant orange stoplight,
it dipped down into the sky,
lingering on it's goodbye, bowing to the night.
Yet unlike a stoplight,
it didn't mean stop.
It didn't go mean go.
It just meant pause.

Pause and watch.
Pause and admire.
Pause and breathe.
Pause and feel.

I am no Wordsworth,
but I don't have to notice every daffodil or call to every owl
to feel the sublimity in the simple act of being alive.
JJ Hutton Apr 2011
the leaves of my mind die,
without rustle, without why,
an incessant new season of direction
of spring, of beauty, of need,
orthodox and counterclocks
of bathroom stalls and
desperation calls--
in the tile we prove our worthwhile
as the hounds and haunts of yesterday
test our haul,
and I'm a magician and a *******,
a lover and a shotty terrorist,
the mad house rings,
sing, sing, sing
of yesterday--of fever dreams,
make me levitate to heavens,
push me away for doorknobs
and summer screens,
those are temporary,
lionesses in heat,
to be appeased
for the watering hole
and mouths of summers sought to soon--
we can romanticize the afternoon,
we can romanticize the mundane gloom,
but in the end we are nomads,
bouncing off shoreline and magazine subscription,
confused of endings
and brave in the face
of annihilation.
Rewrite the histories of our forefathers,
rewrite the reinventions of the wheel,
until it's all progress and simmering,
until the *** is full and festering,
when the now is soon,
and yesterday is dead,
the magnificence of misery--
hits like a runaway diaper truck
to add injury to insult,
to add scorpion to sting,
and if your mother is a dancer,
be not ashamed,
but praised,
she filled a primal need,
more than can be said about
Hemingway or Artaud or Bonaparte or the spring,
I have mountains to climb
and ****** rhymes to satisfy--
if you feel love,
boast,
if not welcome to hell,
a perpetual ****** roast
of ego,
of soul,
of every lover you let go--
the luck lies at stoplight kisses,
the luck lies in ***** sheets
and clean sneakers,
if sorrow is a gateway drug,
heaven is my fix,
if sorrow is a gateway drug,
I'll buy two hells a week for
the rest of my endless years,
if you love me,
do it,
don't doubt,
don't simmer,
ignite,
burn  brighter than former,
than the mourner,
than the funeral singer,
and make dinner on the ground,
we'll howl as the gravestones depreciate,
we'll howl as the stock market
solidifies in ice,
we'll howl as we realize the trite,
and I'm wrong often
but mostly right,
ask the machine gun,
and the sparrow hauling the olive branch,
ask murderers and the stain on your pants,
time is a circus of the three-ring variety,
too much to focus,
too much to bore,
too much to whine,
but under the cover of freedom--
enough to die in contentedness
and lie in the pangs of eternity
with a sigh, a slip of the tongue
and a pair of rolling eyes--
let not your daughter drown,
let not the horns on your head weigh you down,
the tomorrow is soon,
the now is ancient,
the promises to be fulfilled
will leave you begging-
bring on the fantasy,
the daydreamed celibacy,
the marooned integrity,
I've got a moon,
fourteen clouds,
and a headrush from nicotine--
drink of my youth, it's light, easy, cheap--
enough to get you drunk,
but lacking the dexterity of luck--
the burden, the burden
of always giving a ****.
- From Anna and the Symphony
Lawrence Hall Feb 2021
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                 Welcome to Stoplight, Texas

             Shopping * Fine Dining * Antiques * Friendly Folks
       Annual Ye Olden Days Friendly Frontier Cowboy Festival
        Visit the Friendly World-Famous Parking Meter Museum
          We’re Your Friendly Hometown Family of New Friends

Closed No Restrooms Restricted Hours Dining Room
Closed Lobby Closed Road Closed Drive-Thru Only
Line Forms Here One at a Time Cash Only
Road Closed No Restrooms Restricted Hours

Dining Room Closed Lobby Closed Road Closed Drive-
Thru Only Line Forms Here One at a Time
Cash Only Closed No Restrooms Restricted Hours
Dining Room Closed Lobby Closed Road Closed

Cash Only Closed No Restrooms Restricted
Hours Dining Room Closed Lobby Closed, Closed, Closed

                           Y’ALL COME BACK SOON!
A poem is itself.
Di Mar 2015
Driving,
reaching the stoplight,
but not knowing whether to stop,
slow down,
or just keep moving forward
because ****...
What happens when theres no rules?
Love happens when theres no rules.
Green
Yellow
Red
All at once.
THATS MY HEART RIGHT NOW.
JJ Hutton Feb 2011
The cacophony of metal cutting metal screeches,
burying the sound of 2,000 automobile engines, one train,
and 45 yapping onlookers.

I am self-actualizing.

The ******* Oriental who cut me off
learns the meaning of justice in a hair-split second.

I howl as I force his car further to the side of the road.
He's yelping, feeling fright claw his once-proud brain.

I look up, trying to keep my car on the road.
We tear past shopfront after shopfront,
patrons wailing, pointing, finally finding
something mad enough to put down their forks.

I see skeletal trees,
overshadowed by a red wrecking ball,
an out-of-business record shop,
the metal still crying the most demonic
siren's song.

Further I push him,
he's on pavement,
my little Oriental enemy.
I look at him again.
His knuckles are milk white,
his brow covered with perspiration,
his mouth bleeding from his own bite.

Then he hits.

A stoplight post of solid steel,
with three or so feet of concrete surrounding.
I learn he isn't wearing a seat belt.
Glass grinds his delicate skin, he catapults through the air,
then flattens against a newspaper dispenser.

Then I hit.

A **** Suburban in front of me,
who had stopped to watch the carnage,
now found itself partaking.

I have my seatbelt on,
the bags deploy,
thumping my head and
chest like a crippled bolt of lightning.

The Suburban spins into oncoming traffic,
getting further rearranged by
a pile-up of moaning metal.

My truck comes to a stop.
Smoke cascades languidly,
as humans shout in unison,
"I hope you have good insurance!"

I walk back fifteen yards to the
newspaper dispenser.

The Oriental man twitches,
blood pooling about his head
and left arm.

I stoop down closer to him,
look at his silent Rorschach ****** features,
gaze over my shoulder.
The Suburban lies in smoldering ribbons,
driver probably trying to get into heaven.

Shouts continue, building upon one another,
a crowd gathers around me,
whispers all similar to "what the hell happened?"
flame up and burn through the collective.

"Did you know him?" a small black boy,
with teeth of snow asks.

"Not real well, but don't worry kid, he wasn't a good man."

I rummage through the crowd until I break through,
I hear sirens of some sort in the distance,
unclear of cop or ambulance,
I survey the damage to my truck-
a light busted out,
bent bumper,
and what looks like a few holes drilled into the grill.
I open the door,
clumsily ruffle the airbag,
put my key in the ignition,
and to my delight
when I turn the beast,
it purrs submissively.

I grin, let my fingertips
briefly dance on the steering wheel,
and put the truck in reverse.
© 2011 by J.J. Hutton
David Adamson Jan 2019
In this place
The air is so dry that water sulks.
The sky is a viscous brown mosaic.
The sulfurous fumes of old suffering linger.

A woman stares as if trying to unsee creation.
Words on a man’s tongue sound
like rhythmic coughing.
At the only stoplight
the crosswalk sign flashes “Don’t waltz.”

Strangers recoil from me
as if from an embarrassing stain.

People stream to the town square
for some indecipherable ritual.
Probably a funeral for the sun
or a snake oil sale.

Welcome to humankind’s true garden.
Not paradise but a place of desolation,
and what comes after is not exile but striving
and getting the hell out.

So long, mom and dad.
Barton D Smock Jul 2012
i.

in him like the sewing needle of god’s mother; is lightning.

in you a koan.

ii.

now that she wants the surgery removed
they tell her
the womb
is a hook
that looks like a womb.

iii.

everywhere work.
stalks
pitch

the golden blood
of brooms.

iv.

mother in her rocker
her eyes
tire swings
her tongue

a cat’s tail.

v.

fourteen
my sister
martyrs herself
under the monkey
mad
in the stoplight.

vi.

in a church
hangs a coat
with a man
in it.

vii.

does not break loose
like they say

all hell.

— The End —