"thoroughfare" poems
Robert Frost once talked of taking the ‘road less travelled’.
Well, I didn’t.
When the time came, I blindly went and took the safest road.
A very long path where the pitfalls were plenty.
I stumbled in the bracken. Stymied by the darkness that fell quickly as I ambled along.
The soul bruised, battered and exhausted at every infrequent stop.
It was not apparent then that in this venture there was a bleak dead end ahead.
I plowed on even though something inside was telling me again and again to turn back.
But, slowly, a gleaming light of hope crossed my vista beckoning me home.
I crawled. My strength regained as the light intensified.
Then the end was in sight - the portal was within grasp.
And so, yes, I now take that road less travelled.
Standing tall and proud as I gleefully stride down its glowing thoroughfare.
Smiling at the diverse and playful changes that cross my pathway.
All told, it’s never too late to trust your instincts and make a difference.
Just ask me.
And Robert Frost.
Sep 12, 2018
Sep 12, 2018 at 5:41 PM UTC
They have watered the street,
It shines in the glare of lamps,
Cold, white lamps,
And lies
Like a slow-moving river,
Barred with silver and black.
Cabs go down it,
One,
And then another,
Between them I hear the shuffling of feet.
Tramps doze on the window-ledges,
Night-walkers pass along the sidewalks.
The city is squalid and sinister,
With the silver-barred street in the midst,
Slow-moving,
A river leading nowhere.
Opposite my window,
The moon cuts,
Clear and round,
Through the plum-coloured night.
She cannot light the city:
It is too bright.
It has white lamps,
And glitters coldly.
I stand in the window and watch the
moon.
She is thin and lustreless,
But I love her.
I know the moon,
And this is an alien city.
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We know you, and your little dark colors too. A picture book in your purse penned in mustaches on the full faces of your fare. We call you from bed, 8 o' clock in the morning, dog-light you slow wander the Peruvian darkness making jellyfish tentacles with your hands while you feel your way through Salem. We're colder than night and we wake thrice the bits of your day gig. You collapse in a green field of dandelion where thrushes drown you in Brown. We gorge ourselves on mango slivers, pineapple yolks, a half of grapefruit. We know you are close to your end.
On the tops of the cities you call to your lycan friends, the half-sick and muted bray allures them to you, from Bratislava and Mimon, the thoroughfare through the suq. We wait. The foregone untold, the beep beep jug jug swoop sound of the nightingale, in all her dun glory, we wait. Then, as if descending through the moor-lounging silver smoke, the cool stickiness to your fingertips; the fog.
We are there when the blue-less and smoky screen surrounds you, when you shank the auburn Scot hair of the sly fox that stalks, say, a cigarette from your lips. When you take the corners swiftly, gadding the streets. The prize king of vulpicide. You rub its matte fur against your bristly gray beard. And while you lay in your lumps of twelve carat flesh you bleat and you nag. One day you will never come home.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 3:14 PM UTC
The Roman Road runs straight and bare
As the pale parting-line in hair
Across the heath. And thoughtful men
Contrast its days of Now and Then,
And delve, and measure, and compare;
Visioning on the vacant air
Helmeted legionnaires, who proudly rear
The Eagle, as they pace again
The Roman Road.
But no tall brass-helmeted legionnaire
Haunts it for me. Uprises there
A mother’s form upon my ken,
Guiding my infant steps, as when
We walked that ancient thoroughfare,
The Roman Road.
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Once, when midnight smote the air,
Eunuchs ran through Hell and met
From thoroughfare to thoroughfare,
While that great Juan galloped by;
And like these to rail and sweat
Staring upon his sinewy thigh.
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Lady of dusk-wood fastnesses,
Thou art my Lady.
I have known the crisp, splintering leaf-tread with thee on before,
White, slender through green saplings;
I have lain by thee on the brown forest floor
Beside thee, my Lady.
Lady of rivers strewn with stones,
Only thou art my Lady.
Where thousand the freshets are crowded like peasants to a fair;
Clear-skinned, wild from seclusion
They jostle white-armed down the tent-bordered thoroughfare
Praising my Lady.
2.4k
I don't know you, but I feel you right from the get-go. You go about your routine that lassoed my heart into you, you who prance around the vastness of my dreamscape. I come to recognize your presence only in my sleep, at the very least that's what I know.
In that hazy, twisted world of subconscious shuffling, we find ourselves sitting cozily, face to face, at a table outside that rustic coffee shop. Honeyed words and laughters sprightly echo from that very spot where only a vase of freshly cut chrysanthemum sets two bodies and heat apart, longing.
Sometimes, we glorify sunsets at the shoreline. Sometimes, we sound our inane daredevil yawp at a cliff. Sometimes, we simply stargaze and draw across the skies Cassiopeia and Ursa Major.
We embrace the beauty of chaos we often find ourselves walking aimlessly along that busy thoroughfare before we head back home; normally we exchange random thoughts about school, my fascination with Rand's objectivist framework, your addiction to Cobain's craft and story, my weakness over falling in love too fast, your resilience and hope in times of defeat.
We are wired to each other in a special way, so special that it all has to be in lucid dreams. Feelings are intense. Kisses euthanize the butterflies. Midnight cuddles are soulful calisthenics. Holding each other's hand is infinite.
You present to me a self that is nurtured by its soul. I think I love you in my sleep. I feel happy with everything that goes with closing my eyes and letting dreams of the world I created creep into my consciousness. In such a realm I don't know you, but I feel you right from the get-go.
Do you see me in your sleep, too?
Dec 23, 2013
Dec 23, 2013 at 10:04 PM UTC
A term of endearment
A pure bread
Pedigree
Imbecile
The firing squad on parade on the thoroughfare
The death squads are on patrol for run on sentences and chemical runoff
The peer mediators tell us all to calm down
The rapscallions try to push us into their get-rich-quick schemes
And the shut-ins settle down with their mail ordered brides
The wallflowers tell everyone to go to hell with great brio
I guess I'll see them there
It won't be much of an endeavor
It'll be like a dog finding its way home
The blood brothers perturb everyone else
Telling them their open blood pact is BYOB
Then starting a be-in singing Come all ye faithful and Kumbaya
It all comes full circle, monkey see monkey do
Jul 19, 2014
Jul 19, 2014 at 5:26 PM UTC
From the suburban trap I could never call home,
I speed through the freeway.
I could not possibly be late
for a little rendezvous with a lover —
My lover being the city
With its promises preserved in concrete.
I see the skyline from afar, lined with towers and smog
And I feel alive the way lovers do with one another.
And before I know it, I'm cruising along avenues
Uniform houses of white turn to skyscrapers,
I feel the subway slither beneath, filled with all kinds of stories,
As my heart beats to the footsteps of pedestrians.
And I stop at the main thoroughfare,
What was once the dull light I've always known
Now shines through an urban prism
And muted hues turn to vibrant, living colors.
And I am here in the glorious city,
I am looking at a mirage of light and sound,
In all its color, I hear it speak to me:
You are alive, you are alive.
Jul 30, 2016
Jul 30, 2016 at 10:55 AM UTC
O sweet illusions of song
That tempt me everywhere,
In the lonely fields, and the throng
Of the crowded thoroughfare!
I approach and ye vanish away,
I grasp you, and ye are gone;
But ever by night and by day,
The melody soundeth on.
As the weary traveller sees
In desert or prairie vast,
Blue lakes, overhung with trees
That a pleasant shadow cast;
Fair towns with turrets high,
And shining roofs of gold,
That vanish as he draws nigh,
Like mists together rolled —
So I wander and wander along,
And forever before me gleams
The shining city of song,
In the beautiful land of dreams.
But when I would enter the gate
Of that golden atmosphere,
It is gone, and I wonder and wait
For the vision to reappear.
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i
Ireland onto greecian-land then onto the Spanish aisles
Scotland, bypassing England, than a thoroughfare of French wild
Wherein the wild-child is me and mine amare, flower's in hair
ii
Than onto Africa, wherein we canst ride the elephant back's
Gazing the scenes, to feedeth the poor and hungry, seeing past all
The great china wall, the markets of Morocco, to India's beads.
iii
Charm's shalt adapt us, as we were their own,no technology
No phones, just collections and folds, of ourn novel Romance sealed by ourn kiss, the altitude of the moon is ourn marital bliss.
©Elsa angelica dedication
©Brandon nagley
©Lonesome poets poetry
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 6:53 PM UTC
Born to a winter season my thoughts have permanently obstained from chilly insatiable climates that wear on the mind
My thoughts can be only taken to places of warm phenomenons such as a summer day in California
Thoughts taken to places of yesterdays and those of future days like a memory keepsake
Mirage scenes from a dream accompanied by music takes me to days of a dreamy beautiful beach saunter in summer
Enjoying a nice cruise down a winding mountain thoroughfare with the breeze blowing through my hair
May 5, 2022
May 5, 2022 at 3:48 PM UTC
She reigns above the grimy thoroughfare
where Gun Hill Meets Jerome.
A school house made of yellow brick
serves as her earthly home
It was built by Italian immigrants
with plaster Brick and stone.
It comforted the Irish Micks
when they felt all alone.
A sculptor found the beauty
contained in a block of stone
and carved an inspiration
for her people far from home.
The faces at her table change
They hail from different climes
The words and accents differ
in the liturgy of time.
Our lady stands as guardian
where the human meets Divine
Her school, a testament to faith,
in difficult turbulent times
Dec 23, 2011
Dec 23, 2011 at 9:28 PM UTC
i saw the autumn leaves
f
A
L
l
like downy rain. they crinkled and fell softly to the Green earth.
silently surrendering their souls to a
GRAVE
of brown ashes.
simple stories, they all possessed
tragic in nature...
the green leaf filled with ENvy, cried out, "why should the brown fall first, why not I!"
He lay alone to fall by his lonesome self, turning brown as he imagined, only to fall by himself like a lonely book on an aching self.
the orange one desired to be like the sun, she saw the dawn a glow with ORANGE delight, and wanted to fly up there in the bluey sky...
the red loved her soft home amongst the tallest branch
she out cried as he let her go, to fall among the ashes of others, her beauty was FINE,
only at a glance. It died as she drifted farther from her last chance...
the one that mesmerized me the most, was the Brown one,
He D R I F T E D across the morning air
dreaming of a long awaited rest.
d
he had dangled and F e
l A t
o
from,
west to east
his journey was
L O N G.
but he found no wrong in his life,
only joy,
he cared no more of Vanity, or GREED, or the wonders of the Sky.
he had lived his life in these heights and he long to rest among the Greenly pastures of life.
God blew a soft wind and lifted him off course,
he now drifted to the greeny land and laid there, in pure
BLISS
he was not worried of the fall or his homely grave, he dreamed of the simple pleasures of this Bark filled home and drifted away
like an aerial nomad in gay nature.
Unlike the others, the brown leaf was blessed to die among the soft green ground,
a blessing for a humble spirit, cheerful at HearT.
as the other men walked along the thoroughfare,
i watched the autumn leaves f
a
l
l
, like the spirit of the browny leaf,
i was humbled and very happy
Oct 11, 2013
Oct 11, 2013 at 12:36 AM UTC
assembly point
first floor
second floor
P
$1.00
per hour
third floor
others
panelbeaters paint division
spies heckler automotive
no thoroughfare
flooring centre - "fashion for your floor"
kitchen things
relocation sale
plumbing laser - "totally dependable"
Stop!
convictions end careers
science
/three
/fire
/wardens
/tally
/board
design + garden landscapes
All violators will be towed at owners expense
(doorway in constant use)
National mortgage and agency
(coy of nz ltd)
"manufactures of quality soft furnishings"
inward goods ->
ABSOLUTELY
nothing to be left outside of
"floor"
at all times
(community probation service)
"salsa moves New Zealand"
Ice cold pacific fish shop
Inward
outward
goods
(Clearance 3.1 metres)
<-chapel office->
hot pies fish and chips burgers milkshakes ice cream fried chicken
STOP
(funeral services limited)
full system fabrications: - "free quotes!"
hand painted / illuminated
The art of refinishing;
Leaders in worldwide approval 
Jul 6, 2014
Jul 6, 2014 at 6:40 AM UTC
1
dearest readers online
be forewarned
when you read a poem
there may be irony ahead
and if you don't look out
yes, it can be like you've
run against an iron pole
smack bang against the forehead
(which may not matter if you're Ironhead)
but if you're anything like me
flesh and blood and heart -
Ouch! It can more than hurt!)
2
be forewarned also
when you read a poem
it can be like
driving in a school zone
when the kids are going home -
so watch out:
*irony may be walking with persona
and the literal with metaphor
and maybe a figurative pig round the corner
and sarcasm hand in hand
with opposite-of-what's-being-said*
3
so do drive alert
eyes open, mind open
when in Poetry Land
O most intelligent reader
for you never know
in the thoroughfare of poetry
who you might
just bump into:
*Mr Alternative;
Mr So-in-your-face;
Ms I-Want-to-Talk-About-God-Yet-Again;
Vicar There's-No-Bloody-God;
Mr and Mrs Moralist;
Mr and Mrs Hey-Let's-Have-Sex-While-at-Poetry
like-they-do-in-the-back-seats-at-the-movies* -
and so on, you know:
It can be like being Alice in Wonderland
with the Mad Hatter
but you got to keep your sanity
for company
yep, stay alert
or you might just crash your Reading
4
An Afterthought
and I know
wise reader
all the above might make me sound
like Mr-know-all
but hey! - modesty's never been
the poet's professional trait
(you must think about that -
cos even the poet devoted entirely
to Subjects Divine and Holy
and of Such Lofty Things
and exuding sweet humility
is ****** arrogant -
cos they do implicitly or explicitly claim
they know what really matters,
while you or I don't)
Feb 21, 2012
Feb 21, 2012 at 5:58 AM UTC
It was only a tiny village then
Away from the thoroughfare,
Had existed since I don’t know when
With a grassy village square,
There were only seven ancient cars
In the narrow village streets,
And none of them travelled very far
For the shop stocked milk, and treats.
It hadn’t seen much of progress since
The days of old King John,
Who’d lost his jewels in The Wash, by Mintz
Near the town of Oberon,
The villagers there were set in ways
That caused nobody harm,
But when Lars came from Oberon
There was cause to feel alarm.
For Lars was the local planner for
The town of Oberon,
He’d dragged it kicking and screaming
Into the century just gone,
He’d widened streets, and cancelled Meets
In the old stone Mason’s Hall,
By bulldozing their building, leaving
Folk with a low stone wall.
He’d passed it all with an ordinance
That had given him total power,
The council caved to his arrogance,
All that he did was glower,
He put street lights on the corners, and
He acted like a prince,
And when he was done with Oberon
He set his sights on Mintz.
He drove on down to their village square
And he said it wouldn’t do,
He’d turn the square to a thoroughfare
So the cars could drive right through,
He didn’t care when the people there
Said ‘Leave our square alone!’
He said, ‘I’m passing an ordinance,
So you might as well go home.’
The local hall was agog that night
There’d never been such a crowd,
The villagers all were up in arms,
‘This fool shouldn’t be allowed!’
‘This calls for a special meeting,’ said
The spokesman, Rupert Bragg,
‘We’ll have to call on the village witch,
The widow, Nancy Stag!’
They all poured out of the village hall
And they went to see the witch,
Who was busily mixing potions in
A cauldron and a dish,
‘You’ll not be needing my magic,’ said
Old Nancy, with a smile,
‘If you all agree with my plan, you’ll see,
That Lars will run a mile.’
She asked the women to stay behind
While the men went on their way,
‘I mean the ones over seventy,
The rest can go or stay,’
They huddled up with the village witch
And applauded Nancy’s plan,
‘We’ll send him scuttling off from Mintz,
You’ll see, he’s only a man!’
When Lars came down in his private car
They met him in the square,
Holding banners and placards, but
That’s not what made him stare,
‘You’d better get back to Oberon
Or we’ll march there, for our rights,’
He turned, and hurriedly left the square,
They all were dressed in tights!’
David Lewis Paget
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 4:06 AM UTC
They don't have donkeys at South Bermondsey or market stalls.
The pigeons find it easy to loiter
the thoroughfare now
fish and chip wrappings are considered passe.
I wonder if the girls should dress in black
as a counter statement
against the new builds above Tesco.
A sort of mourning for these changes.
What's left of community?
last shot down by mothers helpers.
Town planners, gosh
nail and execution executive
Jan 15, 2016
Jan 15, 2016 at 2:49 PM UTC
Our life's thoroughfare
like sun blazing each morning
from bright to darkness
A blessing for us
to wake up another day
or die in silence
Life is like a day
there are much to accomplish
live to the fullest
While the light is on
make use of the time at hand
before sundown comes
Aug 14, 2018
Aug 14, 2018 at 5:07 AM UTC
I was meanders over this land;
Bring essence of life,
Spreading blessing of earth
to make your land fertile!
Kings were traveled through my torso,
Solders moved through us,
to defend your land!
Once you feel that I am liable
for your sorrow and tears!
You wedge our thoroughfare,
I am becoming torpid!
You were becoming proud,
That you can able to controlled me
and limit your struggle!
In reality you are trying hard till date to **** me!
But still now, I am waiting,
To meet my soul mate and my sister!
I am trying hard to gather energy
to reach my adored waiting there!
This time,
When I will start my journey,
Whatever there on my way,
I will conquer it!
This time,
You can’t stop me!!
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 2:35 PM UTC
mind the muck of the
thoroughfare center, debates
are on for tonight
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 12:28 AM UTC
I was meanders over this land;
Bring essence of life,
Spreading blessing of earth
to make your land fertile!
Kings travelled through my torso,
Solders moved through us,
to defend your land!
Once you feel that I am liable
for your sorrow and tears!
You wedge our thoroughfare,
I am becoming torpid!
You were becoming proud,
That you were able to control me
and limit your struggle!
In reality you are trying hard to **** me!
But still, I am waiting,
To meet my soul mate and my sister!
I am trying hard to gather energy
to reach my adored waiting there!
This time,
When I will start my journey,
Whatever there on my way,
I will conquer it!
This time,
You can’t stop me!!
Apr 21, 2014
Apr 21, 2014 at 2:38 PM UTC
Perusing a concrete jungle
Luminescence hangs from vines in the trees.
Strife rears her horrid head
Making a scene amidst the thoroughfare.
Last words never came so easy,
Now they flow like moths to a flame.
A bitter sweet cacophony fills the air;
It derives in the heart, and
Echoes throughout the mind.
Dissonance abounds the pursuit of vain glory.
Angst it seems has found a new bottled friend
To misplace his faith in.
Pride’s timely advance to the rear
Couldn’t be timed better.
Stoops offer little comfort
Compared to the nest that cradles hatchlings.
A vagrant’s attempt to console loneliness
Falls like music on deaf ears.
Sleep that rarely comes easy
Now seems possible without porcelain prayers.
Resolve attempts a reawakening
On the concrete jungle’s stairs
Only to collapse beneath the weight
Of nature’s tipping point.
Remorse is destined to wait,
At least until first light breaks
The incandescent glow of
The concrete jungle’s neon lights.
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 2:13 PM UTC
Deception sought to beckon in the shadows,
But the wind carried the gentle lips of Wisdom,
Whispering;
“...only fools believe in the trickery of darkness.”
Such a fragile bridge
From dusk to dawn today
Its moorings & way too narrow,
The fingers of the heart
clinging to deceit.
Set the dew of diligence at the gate
Like the flaming sword of Eden!
Forbidding fear ingress, but
Thoroughfare to the Comely Trio;
Righteousness, Peace & Joy!
Permit the Spirit of His Kingdom
Wholly reign within.
© Qwey.ku
Jun 30, 2020
Jun 30, 2020 at 6:29 AM UTC