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laura Oct 2018
Lazy sundays with the sad glow
there’s nothing to be sad about
except that it is all over
of course, my one day off vanished

outside blowing meager paychecks
emerald hillsides topped with leaves
abutting, climbing the city
plunged into histories soon gone

like the cold, gold sun gleaming off
the ribbon of the tarmacked road
we returned to from our escape
peering back through the car’s windshields
okay that last one was too pretentious and came off way wrong, so i deleted it. it’s dead now
nivek Sep 2016
We will meet down the road
a tarmacked lyric
from silence a song
through curb lips
and teeth made for chewing
hear and see the spilling
melody
a highways thrumming
thrumming, thrumming...
Tommy Carroll Apr 2015
We came upon slowing traffic.
Inside the bus
Standing passengers were thrown
and grips tightened
as we edged forward across
the unfinished road.

We passed the sun-glassed
occupants of cars and busses
and the rolled-up sleeves
of lorry drivers who's
tanned arms hung out
of every window, and
who's fingers tapped
an unheard tune.

I stooped to stare at the
dancing distance of  
the baked tarmacked
highway.

Our eyes stung and wet
The metalled road blazed.
Our approaching gaze silent.

Gripped passports Identity papers
rosary- beads
-Letters of transit -
not needed;
The border did what most
borders do-
and shrugged us through.

Laughter becomes all languages.

Later that afternoon,
I sipped from the glass I held.
Jez turned to me and asked,
"Is this what it's like to be drunk?"
I smiled as I slid my wine towards her...
...
words and foto T Carroll..
In one bright, rainless, warm, non-sombre and cloudless morning of April 2014,
Skirmishes began at ten in the morning, among the roaming street children
As if they were only playing hopscotch among themselves, and their mates,
It was an unfolding in the dust filled non tarmacked streets of Lodwar town,
Town located in the savannah desert belt of north western Kenya,
A non local police man who was on patrol shot dead a rioting local,
A hungry local had attempted to ****** a shot-gun from the policeman,
He shot him twice in the head, scattering whitish brain tissues all over,
He shot another local sympathizer of the riot in the leg, in the heel,
The remaining riff-raff of rioting locals took off on their heels, like rats,
Once picturized in the word-smithing power of James Herbert,
The hoards of local rioters, most of them motorbike riders, rushed back,
To their places of abode, known as Manyatta,
                                                  or poor hamlets, more sorriest than ghettos,
They pulled out their fellow manyatta dwellers
For military reinforcement
They came back in throngs
All armed with rusty guns
Swearing to **** all
By the brute guns,
All the non locals
Not from their tribe.


They rampaged a whole town
Mercilessly looting and plundering
Each and every shop, business vessel, all outlets
Of the non-locals, all the migrants; black and white,
Chinese and Arabs, Indians and Somalis, Just but to mention,
They looted while singing tribal war songs, shooting all the non locals
Identified by differences in outfits; especially loincloths, Ekijolong, etc
They shot non local women, children and vandalized their trade wares
Those with guns holding the police station hostage, those without guns looting shops
Some tried ******, but their uncircumcised ***** proved a snag in this satanic venture
With a sardonic remorse they stopped the terror of **** against womenfolk of non natives
Women folk of non local ethnicity, but still not safe as shooting followed without ruth,
Puncturing the *******, ****** and bladders, spilling and splashing blood on each gunshot,
Human wailing, crying, hysterical running, farting, falling, and brute of the gun’s cannon
Gripped the town in a flower of curling dark smoke from burning tires,
Gunmen walked from door to door in a feat of amok anger,
Asking names of each person on their way
To decipher out the tribe or the clan
Lest they mayhem a native son
Instead of the non- local
Which they are bound to ****
By dutifully releasing
Deathly bullets
Into the head
Of emoit.
junamshra Nov 2018
The pavement lies along the road.
Amongst the swift passing traffic,
It remains untrodden except the bird.
A foot steps onto the tarmacked mess;
A sigh of relief from both parties emerge:
Soon the step is gone with the day.
She sits again awaiting her prize.
Alas she is relieved of her burden;
A motorway is drawn across the rolling hills.
But what will become of the lonely road?

Grit on grit will build anew.
Upon the grit, metal would flow.
Now the pavement lays no more,
Peacefully the traffic rushes along.
A broken sonnet.
23/11/18
nivek Mar 2016
you can taste the tarmacked pavement
smell the earth
when rain mixes with molecules in your mind
Eryri Jan 2019
Friends with Star Wars figures
And friends with football stickers.
Friends with bikes,
Friends with footballs;
The road was Wembley,
The neighbours' van our goalpost,
No one seemed to care
That their cars were being trashed
By wayward shots and way-off volleys
Or their lawns were being wrecked
By 10 year olds with football studs
Crossing themselves à la Maradona
Before vital penalties.
Happy days indeed,
Playing Block,
Headers and Volleys,
Sixty Seconds,
Laughing, smiling, laughing.
But that same estate,
Thirty years hence,
Is clogged with cars,
No room for makeshift crossbars
To help nurture future soccer stars!
Lawns are tarmacked drives.
Children forced into sedentary lives
Not by social media or XBox Live
But by lack of playing spaces.
So, no more cycle races,
Or street-football with undone laces,
Just kids with nowhere to play
And no power with which to sway
Those ignorant adults who simply say
"Kids today, eh? Too lazy to play".
nivek Feb 2016
I looked out a high tower
and the beauty of nature cradled my heart

then concrete being poured into foundations
and tarmacked parking lots

I could see all the industry of Man
while all the poets were shaking off their hangovers

then they began to sing in their solitude
for all the voices nobody else could hear.
Sam Lawrence May 18
Here where the town has gone
The final kerbside flush
Against the straggled ends
Of summer weeds

Above the tarmacked hills
Cars fall and rise  
Ever casting pinpricked lights
They navigate the starless nights

Each time we stooped
Inside that parabolic arch
We left chalk marks
With our restless feet

Perhaps we sought
A turning point
A way to stifle down all thought
Of when our road might start

— The End —