"unpaved" poems
daddy fractured our world,
titled it off it’s axis, sent it
careening out of control.
that was before the day
his own impairment
made him overcorrect,
****
the mercedes onto unpaved
shoulder, then back
across two lanes of traffic,
and over the double yellow
lines, head-on into traffic.
that was before the one-ton
truck sliced the passenger
side wide open. that was
before premature death, battered
bodies, and scars no plastic
surgeon could ever repair.
yes, that was before
Aug 30, 2018
Aug 30, 2018 at 11:07 PM UTC
The winding drive along the sea
I took so many times
to steal away from anarchy
to pacify my mind
The city sirens come undone
before the ocean spray
then down the hill to U.S. 1
and thus begins the day
The Pier receding to the South
Will Rogers to the North
Topanga is the turn we seek
as we are going forth
The starkness of the hills and pines
the rivulet below
as Westward the Pacific shines
beneath the morning glow
The twists and turns I still recall
though roads are better now
no unpaved sections left at all
nor farmland for a cow
No Austin Mini Union Jack
the landmarks too have changed
and I so lost since coming back
I almost feel deranged
The Health Food Store with hitching post
the horses canter past
the countryside I love the most
and visit now at last
But on Mulholland Highway there
surprises lie in wait
there’s razor wire on the fence
and horses at the gate
As giant dishes aiming deep
into a mountain wall
so Orwell’s promise do we keep
applying it to all
But I remember still the day
the hillside turned to fire
the way to turn had burned away
the sky was black with ire
And in a wide spot in the road
in reverence did we stand
a fox, a hare, my dog and I
all watched the burning land
Can nothing make us feel as small
as fire pure and cruel?
to know it as a cunning foe -
to know we’re naught but fuel
But through the smoke a fire truck
led us down on Kanan Dume
toward the cleaner seaward air
away from certain doom
And all at once the trial was o'er
for we had reached the sea
as once Carrillo had before
and now my dog and me
We pass the house of river stone
Moonshadow’s Restaurant
and even Tidepool Gallery
for years my favorite haunt
And back to Santa Monica
on PCH we drive
admiring still the beauty
yet more thankful we’re alive
The winding drive along the sea
I took so many times
to steal away from anarchy
to pacify my mind
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 10:12 PM UTC
sometimes my parents will ask me
"are you really going down that road again"
with such disdain and bitterness
and it just makes me so angry
because they do not realize that depression
is not a road one chooses to go down
and it is not a road one can easily exit
it is an unpaved road riddled with cracks and potholes
with no street signs or stoplights to guide us safely home
and to accuse someone of willingly taking that road?
well, that is how some of us end up there in the first place
-
Mar 21, 2014
Mar 21, 2014 at 12:34 AM UTC
What scares me through this dark forest?
It is not the dark,
Nor the wet socks,
Nor the treacherous rocks in the way
Nor the rustling of grass unpaved
Nor the occasional shriek of an owl
Nor the cold, nor the starvation
Nor the bats and insects and crawling creatures
Nor the unknown beyond horrid imagination
Nor the screams of sorrow's victims
Nor the silence, or the sheer loneliness
The only fear is existing
Painfully drifting
Having nowhere to go
No journey to bleed for,
Having to watch the forest burn
As hollers of delight emerge from monstrous look-alikes,
Siblings turned beasts of false pretenses and heavy machinery
And the more it burns, the more colorful it gets,
The more join in, the louder it grows, they're having a blast!
Till the smoke touches every molecule in the air,
Till we all suffocate in a carbon monoxide high
Forever frozen in a grin of painful ecstasy,
And the forest turns to ashes, awaiting a kinder generation,
A kinder species, perhaps.
Oct 17, 2022
Oct 17, 2022 at 10:48 AM UTC
I will follow you
whereto you roam
I will follow you
all the way home
down the road
up the hill
along the river
by the mill
past the tin shed
that old shoe store
till I follow you
and go no more
to an open field
where a path unpaved
with stones unsealed
leads to your grave
May 1, 2022
May 1, 2022 at 6:56 AM UTC
uneven, steps,
Smack against the unpaved road way,
Leaving the screaming house,
On that empty hill behind,
I sit down beside the dead deer,
We have so much incommon,
No family or friends,
We were left for dead,
We'll never open our eyes again and see the world,
As beautiful,
My finger tips carress the roughly fine fur against his jaw,
My lips meet his forehead,
A gentle goodnight kiss,
Dandelions & Black-eyed Susans,
I wrap and tangle evenly,
Madly, through his antlers,
My cheeks still flush with the escape,
My eye still bruised,
Wasn't a quick enough get away,
My emotions vast and empty,
Like this graveyard of a fields,
My hands grab the last flower,
Plucking it from the earth,
From its home,
No one was there to speak up for it,
Just like me,
I fell in love with nature,
I realized how cruel it really can be,
Just like them,
Just like me,
Just like you,
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 23, 2015 at 7:05 PM UTC
I’m driving laps around
Urique’s unpaved streets
with Arnulfo, the world’s fastest
ultra-runner up front
Chugging tesguino disregarding
Young son, Mateas in the back
Handing us the 2 liter Coca-
Cola bottles, full of the mashy
corn brew.
The cholos are drinking
Tecate, mumbling under the palms
stalking the river, watching us
break down at ever lap.
Arnuflo heaves the truck
from behind, alone,
screaming and pushing.
I snap it into second gear
Mateas trembling,
and off we go. Arnulfo hopping in
smoking more cigarettes
passing the tesguino around shouting
Rapido! Poco a poco! Andale!
Rancherra bumps full blast, the
Eternal bumping,
beem, boom, up and down
Beem, boom, beem, boom
Tubas and brass echoing through all the adobe walls
meandering all the way
down the arroyo
to God know’s where.
The cholos challenge Arnulfo
to a race in their harsh stares
under flashy hats and shiny mustaches,
Ed Hardy models with sharp pointed
snake-skinned boots
Ayyeee, Arnulfo says, He won’t race
gainst Oscarine who they say
is the fastest young Chabochi
better than the elders
who used to chase down deer,
gently twisting their necks
after tracking them to
an ending exhaustion.
Arnulfo tells them I can win
as Oscarine snorts more from the bag
they pass around from his pocket
Off we go twenty yards
Around the farthest tree
And I win because of
Arnulfo's ancient
assurance
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
You're like a speed bump
In the middle of a road
I want to continue going down.
One minute we're high and
The next you have me low.
I hold on to the times
In which you're kind
But sometimes, that's only
During the night.
I want to tell myself I could care less,
But the sad thing is I care most.
My constant frown is just me
Not wanting you to know
How down you make me.
I want to be the strong one,
I've always been the strong one,
But strong isn't constant hope
Over someone who's already
Told me no.
Strong isn't wanting someone
Who doesn't want to be wanted,
Or likes to be wanted but hides
In the mountains.
You're that cup of coffee I want
At noon,
And that cup of wine I want past two.
But I should run,
Because as much as I tell myself
You're not,
You're that speed bump
That makes me feel so high
But at the same time brings me to ask myself why?
Apr 5, 2016
Apr 5, 2016 at 8:45 AM UTC
Departures and Arrivals.
The dust hasn't yet settled on the torn up trail behind me.
Particles still linger in my hair, my teeth and in the air
around me like they own me.
I wonder, even though it seems like I've dearly departed, if it
will ever settle and I don't necessarily expect it to because
maybe it has to sock it to me
so no sweet amnesia can shew away the memories of what it was
that got me here to this place of growing respect for all the
potholes and all the unpaved roads.
Driving in the dark tree monsters slide bye one after the other,
their silent dialogue giving me the shivers like so many other
things in the world do,
cold sweat running down my face as the car rattles and the
music stops and there's only the sound of dripping rain. Tears,
like rain aren't separate from sweat.
They're constanly recycling and bleeding into one another like
night bleeds into day. I get that and I even love that because where
does hardship go if not to tears?
Stuffing grief into the cracks of the bodymind is a recipe for sick. I get
that too. People may tell ya to take a pill, have a swig, do anything to
bully your discomfort away but you sense
and you know that you sense and only you can sense what it is you
have to do. So you keep on going because what has drinking the
sweet numbing Koolaide ever done for ya anyway?
And it's a relief to come out of the comatose to watch the rose-gold
sunrise coming up over your landscape as your gears shift on the
broken hill of this awakening;
laser sharp beams of light gutting the nonsense out of ya, your feet
touching down onto solid ground and you feeling shaky but all
aglow in your skin
and this departure is telling every cell in your body that you have arrived.
There will be other departures and other arrivals, other days and other
nights but for now,
in this moment you have arrived and you don't give a **** about and
you're almost grateful for the dust and the particles and the freaky
and the the not so freaky fallout hovering over ya like a halo
1/2020
Aug 25, 2022
Aug 25, 2022 at 10:00 AM UTC
Cabin in the wild wood
Along mossy unpaved paths of pine
Birds call from the canopies
Over the cobblestone fireplace
Stag head and moon faced clock
Harken toward the dawn’s heraldry.
Eventual hours chime for the lime light.
Dog waits by the door for the next hunt.
Sep 9, 2018
Sep 9, 2018 at 10:59 AM UTC
Peace at first,
Seems like hurt,
When you let go of thought you find out what your worth,
It could be through teaching,
It could be through preaching,
As long as to the sky you're continously reaching,
The allegory of the cave,
For those who are saved,
Could be a road well traveled or one unpaved,
If you choose to pray,
Or with conscious you play,
We can go and grow together to start a new day,
Once separation can cease,
And on common ground we meet,
The sun will shine brighter and we shall all know new peace.
May 13, 2014
May 13, 2014 at 8:33 PM UTC
The Road; it’s a ***** unpaved, rocky road indicating little life to where it leads. Some would say good, some would say **** The Road; it scares some. It scares them so much they veer off into the blistering concrete jungles that bring dreary, useless cubicles that trap human life like the barbed wire fences of the concentration camps. This Road leads to adventure. It leads to reverberation, to new life, to energy that will run through your veins like the ***** fluids from a used needle of a ****** The Road is gray, even dead in some areas. The death, dark-like colors do not indicate what the Road leads to though. It leads to color. It leads to the organic. It leads to knowledge. It leads to forgiveness. The Road, as ***** as it may be, as rough as the ridges of the great Rockies, as old as the life of an underused Supreme Court Justice; despite these unending failures, there is hope, the hope of an ending. This hope brings us joy. It brings us happiness, clarity, peace, tranquility. The Road takes us to anew. It makes us anew. It breaks us from the old. The Road is where we belong. The Road is for us, by us, with us, but never against us.
Mar 22, 2013
Mar 22, 2013 at 12:25 AM UTC
That early morning ****** air tasted pure
birds began to rise singing.
The veil of the night lifted for a new dawn
a cockerel then crowed.
Fields still green trees standing unscathed
land yet unpaved!
Untouched by developers or planners curse
a tranquil reminder.
How the countryside was before the building
took natures beauty away
I remember that unblemished infinity gaze
through the natural haze!
With a clear surveillance of the distant landscape
creatures in their habitats.
Still undisturbed of man's advances in evidence
without his blundering hand.
When machines came to carve up hills and dales
lost forever lands and trails!
Lose respect of the environment sacrifice the future!
The Foureyed Poet.
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 7:48 PM UTC
The memory of you still exists in my mind,
three years, two girlfriends, and a thousand bottles later.
The way i look for your eyes in a crowd is unsettling,
searching each face as they walk by in their own quiet parallel universe,
unaware of the longing for the comfort of your soft voice and gentle touch.
I look for you because you still are the one,
the one who suffered with me without question and saved me when i was in need.
Salvation was in large supply.
Redemption was a certainly familiar entity.
The road to your heart was a unpaved trail through the wilderness of time and space.
Let it be the one i stay on till the end.
May 18, 2013
May 18, 2013 at 6:04 AM UTC
The road unpaved, waved winding red
high pines, unfettered buried feet, under needles strawed
Fragrance, piney, warmth of sap, bark bled
Lithia springs ring clear, a tumbled water song
Owl tree softly spoke
lily fawn so slept, caressed by mourning cloak
Sun begins to edge the hills
wings rise, flies the morning fog
Fritillaria bends the light, leaning into
daybreak's mantra song
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 1:45 PM UTC
Beauty decomposing,
Like Mozart unraveling;
A symphony from his grave,
She no longer would behave;
Slowly she rotted,
Her I's no longer dotted;
No more makeup,
Hair tied in a knot was her dressed up;
She stunk like a corpse,
Driven to the end of her ropes;
Because not even an overdose,
Would make her come alive a dead rose;
She'd been mistreated,
Her will to survive depleted;
She no longer held her composure,
Her life needed no closure;
She was broken down,
Wore on her face a constant frown;
No more a bright light,
This beauty caused fright;
From the inside out,
She was barren a drought;
No longer could she be saved,
All roads that led to her had been unpaved;
Beauty she was no more,
Just a long ago told fairy tale lore...
© okpoet
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 2:36 AM UTC
our clothes are perfumed
in the after effects
of the cigarettes
you and he share
as we drive down
unpaved paths in Iowa
bits of ash
slip past your seatbelt
to build new nests
tangled gray birds
in my beard's brambles
the wind splutters its dying breaths
as a Jeep Cherokee kicks up
specters of dust
and i sit in the backseat
forgotten
while second-hand smoke
leaks out half-cracked windows
fleeing your presence
i envy the particles
liberated from the confines
of your cancerous lungs
slipping free and disappearing
into the mourning light
rising with a ruddy sun
behind anguished hillocks
Apr 14, 2016
Apr 14, 2016 at 10:03 AM UTC
Hooded hitchhiker of haunted hours!
(Or haunted houses, as the mainstream would have me believe)
Somewhere between New Mexico and New York the tables must have turned - see, it's not you that's seeking a ride, but me
(If a ride is what the kids are calling such a sweet and final relief these days)
Life is indeed "a highway" but I missed the EXIT HERE when overcome with the sight of your dusty bone-dry thumb creeping out from underneath a solemn black bell
(And they said I slow down for nothing!)
My curiosity intensified when: I glimpsed you behind a hydroplaning semi, just north of the Missouri River: I was going left from the right lane and I shouted to you: "hop in!"
Your blatant denial leaves me wondering...
(do you feel as though you are above me?)
(are there Escalades in the underworld?)
(does a '98 Volvo wagon not convey the utmost message of doom and despair?)
To clarify things, please observe the billboard on your passenger side:
I AM RECKLESS, I AM LETHAL
I AM HALF-BLIND AND SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL
DOING 90 ON AN UNPAVED ROAD
FINGERS DUSTING STEERING WHEEL
TIRES DUSTING DITCHES
(Please keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times - unless you'd rather not)
Oh, robed and rusty reaper!
My consensus is this:
- I will not seek you out, but
- I
- will
- not
- turn
- you
- down
(Our final joyride looms just outside my rearview mirrors and directly inside my stream of consciousness)
Sep 8, 2013
Sep 8, 2013 at 11:38 PM UTC
Walnut trees release spent leaves
Shower me in summertime past.
Miles of unpaved roads-
meandering.
Sep 18, 2021
Sep 18, 2021 at 10:03 AM UTC
The road to hell is paved with good intentions,
But the only way out is a ****** backroad
That is unpaved save for the jagged remains
Of the souls that didn’t quite make it.
Jul 3, 2016
Jul 3, 2016 at 6:16 PM UTC
On these roads I walk,
unpaved and uneven,
I stumble on the pebbles at my feet.
Each one reminding me of my failures,
everything I’ve done wrong.
But You are the cane that holds me upright,
guiding me along the bumpy path.
You refuse to let my hand slip from the grip I struggle to maintain,
and help my legs reach where I’m supposed to be when they start feel heavier than stone,
I’m not a mistake when You are around,
and though I fall time and time again,
You let me lean on you,
and pull me back up again.
I can make it on this old and beat up road,
even if I’m bruised and worn.
Because You never abandon me.
Oh God, You never leave me stranded.
And Your love is overwhelming.
Jul 27, 2018
Jul 27, 2018 at 8:01 PM UTC
In a universe where nothing could be everything
and everything could be nothing
I wake up blinded by the sun and my weak eyes struggle to conform
but her power desires me
In a universe where silence can ring ears
and actual sirens can calm them
My engine rustles with promise as I drive down the unpaved road
I am cement, and spill out of my windows into the potholes as I pass
Shadows of trees fold over behind me as outlines of roofs emerge
one day I’ll drive and count them all
In a universe where we worship time
but it repays by pilfering our youth
I make out silhouettes through the strands of my ***** hair
Your tie taunts me, perched confidently on the base of your neck
My fears in the flesh, enveloped in dark eyes and strong posture
one day I’ll face him eye to eye
In a universe where we long for love
but company deludes us
I eat dinner alone at a table for six
and stare longingly through one of my three big windows
My mom probably called but my phone’s been on silent
one day I’ll get free time and call her back
In a universe where nothing could be everything
and everything could be nothing
My pillow steals my thoughts for the closing hours of the night
and I ponder on how much of me it’ll return when I wake up in the morning
Solipsism
(10.16.2020)
—adrianatamara
Dec 24, 2020
Dec 24, 2020 at 10:07 AM UTC
regional dissidence marked by ****** exchanges
tempered anger lends itself to psychotic episodes
and the children lay in gulley’s attempting to remain hidden –
shattered glass crashes onto unpaved streets
complete with ditches dug to expedite waste removal
as the filth of a nation runs freer than the citizenry –
enter technological gods bringing stories of prosperity
visions of democracy and unity begin to shape in the heart and minds
or so they tell themselves so sleep will find them –
battered emotions bubble to the surface of faces
pressed hard against stained glass doorways
fleeting images of food strewn tables and shoes un-holed
dance across impoverished and diseased brains
incapable of self-supporting, they line tourists spots
holding shabby signs and juggling rocks for pennies
brandished with the gentleman who claims slave freedom –
desert boarders separate families languishing for acknowledgement
true Americans generationally linked to the very soil
toil in agricultural hell as whites get fat
on the backs of today’s slave system
immigrant workers bury loved ones on the edges of factory farms
saying Catholic prayers to a corporate god
most well known for being the root of child molestation –
cartel kingpins hire babies to mule ******
DEA agents load them into vans destined for the inner city
As the forever war against minorities takes yet another turn –
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 10:46 AM UTC