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Kelly Bitangcol Aug 2018
“Pepsi employee killed in Hawkins car crash.”
“Maine Vice Mayor Deaver killed in car accident in Castle Rock.”
“Woman ‘dead’ after car crash found alive in morgue.”

The news reports on radio echoed through her whole car as she indulged her third bottle of Russian Standard. Weird, she thought; she has been hearing news about road collisions all day. She was sure that the alcohol wasn’t intoxicating her mind to hear different things, she knew she was still sober. Everybody knew she always had low alcohol tolerance, even herself knew that; now she couldn’t even taste the bitterness of the liquor, she feels it inside of her. Drinking was the thing her mother told her to never do, perhaps because it turns her father into a monster with a closed fist as a weapon.

She looked at her rear-view mirror and realised she was travelling alone on an empty road. People had told her before to never travel alone in Derry Road or else something might happen. She wasn’t travelling; she was running away. It fits her, she thought, she and the road were the same; they were both empty.

She heard an unfamiliar noise, like the sound of a steel colliding with another steel. She had realized that her car engine died while she was driving. “Seriously?” she said to herself, “Is everything I own dead now? Like me?”

She stepped outside of her car and walked to find any gasoline stations or houses that could help her. There is no luck for any signs of functioning establishments on an empty road like this, she thought. However, a place filled with buried muscle cars, abandoned pickup trucks, and old bulldozers caught her attention. It’s an empty road. How is there supposed to be a car junkyard? She thought to herself. What’s even stranger is, she didn’t see it while she was driving.

“Well this day couldn’t get any weirder,” she said. First she couldn’t get drunk after drinking three bottles, then she kept on hearing news about car crashes, and now she suddenly saw a car junkyard out of the blue? She opened her hood and a massive smoke appeared, causing her to inhale it. She was coughing while staring at the oils leaking. She didn’t know what to do. She had no choice but to look for people who could help her with her car. She didn’t know anything about it, she didn’t even know what the problem of her car was. She glanced at the sky and saw the sun was slowly setting as well as her hope in what’s happening. She thought to herself, maybe this creepy car junkyard could actually help her.

She walked towards the old car junkyard and the sight of it surprised her. Her eyes widened when she saw people hanging out, beer bottles everywhere, and some couples having the time of their lives.

“May I help you?” A long haired guy who was wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt appeared by her side. She was having second thoughts in answering him back, but she really needed help, especially if she reeks of alcohol on an empty road.

“Yes, actually I was driving and then my car suddenly stopped. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but a smoke appeared and the oils were leaking. I figured you can help me.”

“You think we know everything about cars just because we’re hanging out in a car junkyard?” He asked while laughing. Her embarrassment was overflowing at that moment which caused her to look down, she was still hearing the guy’s chuckles.

“I just guessed. I think.” She said this while looking at the ground since she was too humiliated to look at him. Much to her surprise, his laughter was no longer heard. “Thank God.” She whispered to herself.

“We’ll see what we can do. At the moment, why won’t you just join us?” Join them? Like hang out with people who are in this creepy junk yard? She stood still while ruminating on what she should do. She was feeling a little scared that maybe these people are actually killers or ghosts but there wasn’t really anything to lose for her. This is the place she'd rather be than her house where her mistakes and failures are always included in their dinner conversations.

She walked towards people who were about her age. Girls with vibrant hair colours looked at her from head to toe, some of them smiled at her that caused her to smile too.

“Your car died?” asked a short haired girl holding a beer bottle.

“Yes. This day couldn’t get any worse. Life couldn’t get any worse, from losing everything you have to people you trusted betraying you. My life is as worthless as my rotten car.” she uttered. One problem she has always had was the inability to control her mouth. People tried to cut her tongue before, unbeknownst to them it’s a far more dangerous weapon than their sharp objects.

“If that ain’t the truth.” said the short haired girl while taking a sip of her beer. Seeing people drink their beer bottles triggered her, she was fighting the urge to go back to her car and finish the remaining bottles of her Russian Standard.

“You want one?” the short haired girl asked while giving her the beer bottle. She just shrugged and shook her head, she was never a fan of beers.

The people in the car junk yard continued to hang out and drink their beers. They talked to her and even told some stories, she was enjoying their company. Epiphany suddenly hit her when this one thought crossed her mind; people there talked to her and asked her questions, but they never asked for her name. She never knew even a single name. Abandoned cars, unusual but enthusiastic people, and a junkyard in the middle of an empty road. She was starting to think she visited the labyrinth of lost people with broken cars.

“I hope you guys don’t mind me asking but, who are you and what do you do here?” curiosity was evident in her voice. For the first time, she was starting to care about things.

“We live here.” A husky and deep voice replied, which sent shivers up and down her spine.

“You live here? Like you sleep inside the cars?” Her voice was filled with wonder and a little bit of fear. She has never heard of a lifestyle like this. What about their food? Their money? Their family? These questions surrounded the confused mind of hers.

“Yeah, you can say that.”

“I’m sorry if I ask too many questions but how did you guys meet? Like, were you all friends before or did you just meet here?”

“We all met because of one thing, our cars suddenly died. Actually, two things; our cars mysteriously stopped and we all had the desire to walk away from life.”

She immediately felt tiny little bumps over her skin. She thought this was actually a nonexistent place but she was right all along. She was feeling a combination of terror and nonchalance, like a person who is on the verge of death but has already accepted the fate that the heavens had stored for her. People already had their eyes closed while some are still staring at the constellations in the sky, wondering why their lives didn’t shine as bright in the dark as them. She’d rather sleep than look at the stars, for she knows her life would be much better with her eyes closed.

“Are you sure with your decision?” a soft but eager whisper awakened her from her thoughts. She saw the long haired guy staring at her, waiting for her answer.

“What decision?”

“Are you sure you want to walk away from everything already?”

She looked at the guy with annoyance mixed with sarcasm. “What? I’m just sleeping. When my car miraculously work again, I’ll leave immediately.”

“You’re enjoying here, aren’t you?” She didn’t try to utter some words, she knew inside of her that he already knows the answer.

“I was like that too, you know? I thought this was the place where I can finally be free. I finally walked away from my problems, I don’t have to deal with never ending problems and challenges anymore.” He paused, which caused her to look at him and wait for his reply. “But that’s only what I thought.” He said this with a broken voice that she was sure she would never forget.

“But isn’t this junkyard truly for us? For people who failed, for people whose lives don’t deserve to continue anymore. Maybe our cars stopped for a reason, maybe our engines were never meant to be fixed. Maybe we were never meant to be fixed.” She felt tears slowly streaming down her face. She remembered the sight of her lover with the person she trusted the most, she remembered the bathroom floor filled with her own blood, she remembered the bruises on her face after the night her father got drunk.

“At first it was. It felt good. Until I realised that walking away from everything isn’t the solution. It doesn’t make things right, it actually makes them worse. The fact that you didn’t even try to fight is the worst thing.” She felt it. She felt his pain. She didn’t even know who this person was but one thing is for sure, she felt everything this guy had been through.

“But I tried, you know? I tried everything and life still gives me the same, eternal problems that I will never find solutions to.”

She could see his hazelnut eyes travel around her. Her blue eyes that were filled with tears looked at the boy who told her more meaningful words than her own father ever could. “I was like that. I was dumb to think life will always be easy, that I can surround myself with happiness and positivity. But life isn’t like that. Your life will not always be like the rising sun because most of the time it’s a thunderstorm. But I was more dumb to think that the best decision was to run away. I heard all about this place ever since before. I drove all the way from my place to here, thinking I could escape it all. That’s not the right decision. There isn’t a day here when I don’t think of my mother crying while I was in the hospital bed, wondering what she did wrong. I gave up on life when the people in it didn’t give up on me. I was stupid for thinking that I could reach my destination immediately without having a journey. I was stupid to think that I can just drive for 1 kilometre and be at the place I want. It doesn’t work that way, life doesn’t work like that. There will always be a journey, a journey where your car’s engine will be dead in the middle of an empty road, but you will find a way to fix it and drive again.”

“So did you regret your decision?”

“Let’s just say I was too late.” She couldn’t find the right words, she didn’t know what to say. She lets him do all the talking for she knows he can never say these words again.

“Look, I don’t want to be the one who decides for you. Maybe you’re so fed up of everything, I get it. But I’m just asking you to think about it, before everything is too late. And piece of advice, if you decide to leave here, please, don’t ever look back.” Blue meets hazelnut, in that one occurrence, they knew their car engines aren’t the only ones they have in common.

She knew that if she walked away, she was never going to see him again. It seemed impossible that he would tell her his name, but she still took the risk and ask him for it. “Before I go, can I please know your name?”

“My name’s Kevin. Kevin Parks.” His face was filled with regret and sadness. Maybe saying his own name was a struggle for him, he knew he would never hear his loved ones say it again.

She nodded and smiled at him, it’s been too long since she put a smile on her face.

“I’m Rosa.” She said. He smiled, knowing she still has the chance to let the world know her name.

“Tell my mom I’m sorry.” And just like that, he disappeared. She was left alone with the chaotic mind of hers. This was everything she wanted, to finally walk away from everything.

She looked around all the abandoned cars and abandoned souls, this is the place she’s supposed to walk away from. The darkness, the surrendering, the giving up. The people disappeared and the smell of beer and cigarettes were no longer there. Silence was her only companion, and it was the most riveting thing she has ever stumbled upon.

She went inside the rotten car of hers and inserted her key in the ignition when her engine miraculously turned on. Hearing her father’s drunken shouts, covering her scars with bracelets, and seeing people who shattered her are the things she knew she will experience again; this reality lead to Rosa’s hesitance in leaving the car junk yard. However, she thought that maybe she could visit Kevin’s mother and talk about him when he was still not aware of this place. This place, this car junkyard filled with abandoned cars and souls unexpectedly shed a light to the road towards whatever destination she was meant for. For the first time in many years, the sun finally set in her direction again. The rear-view mirror was very tempting to look at, yet she gathered all her courage to put her foot on the gas.
Kelly Bitangcol Sep 2017
There was an important event she needed to go to. She woke up at 5 in the morning to prepare for this important event that doesn’t even matter to her. She wasn’t excited for it, in fact, she hated it. Unfortunately, it was mandatory, so she couldn’t refuse. She hated herself for it, the fact that she couldn’t say no anymore. If you ask her old friends to describe her, they would say she was a girl who always speaks her mind. She was known for being that girl, until she left her home.


She couldn’t wait to leave her home. She spent her days wondering what would be her life if she lived in a different place, doing the same things everyday makes her sick. She was getting tired of it, she was getting tired of living in a place she grew up, she was getting tired of seeing the same people everyday, she wanted to start over. Possessing a new image, meeting new people, having a brand new start were the things she wanted before. She thought starting over would be a great thing, but oh boy, she couldn’t be more wrong.


She glanced on the road while listening to the bad music on the radio. She realized she was travelling alone on an empty road. It fits her, she thought, she and the road were the same; they were both empty. Her friends warned her about this specific empty road before. They told her to never travel alone or else something might happen. She used to be scared of all of these but now she’s not anymore. Raise Your Voice, that’s the name of the event she was going to. Standing on stage, holding the microphone while speaking up used to be her favourite thing to do, now she couldn’t even do it anymore. She always had something to say about things, and she always had something to laugh about. She was a burning flame that everybody thought nothing could ever put down, until this strong element stopped her from rising. Her soul was full of hopes, dreams, and life. Now she doesn’t even know what she wants anymore, she lost herself.


She wanted to run away, to walk away from all these problems. She just wanted to graduate and get this done and over with. Life was supposed to be a battle and she was supposed to be a soldier who never surrenders, she promised herself that. She promised herself she would never give up, and now she couldn’t care less about things.


While she was remembering the good times her car engine suddenly died while she was driving. “Seriously?” she said to herself, “Is everything I own dead now? Like me?”
The moment she stepped outside her car to check what’s wrong with it, she unexpectedly saw a car junk yard. It’s an empty road, how is there supposed to be a junkyard? What’s even more strange is, she didn’t see it while she was driving.


“Well this day is weird as ****,” she said. She checked her car engine and she didn’t know what to do. She had no choice but to look for people who could help her with her car. She didn’t know anything about it, she didn’t even know what the problem of her car was. Maybe this creepy car junkyard could actually help her.


She became surprised when she saw couple of people hanging out in this junkyard. Is this a secret hipster hangout? Who would even wanna hang out in a car junkyard? Imagine drinking beer while being surrounded with abandoned cars.


“May I help you?” A long haired guy who was wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt appeared by her side. She was having second thoughts in answering him back, but she really needed help, especially the event is 4 hours from now.


“Yeah, actually I was driving while my car suddenly stopped. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, and I don’t know anything about cars. What shocked me more is that I saw this junkyard and a lot of people are actually hanging out in this place. I figured you can help me.”


“You think we know everything about cars just because we’re hanging out in a car junkyard?” He asked while laughing. Her embarrassment was overflowing at that moment.


“I just guessed. I think.” She looked at the guy and he thankfully stopped laughing.


“We’ll see what we can do. At the moment, why won’t you just join us?” Join them? Like hang out with people who are in this creepy junk yard? She was feeling a little scared that maybe these people are actually killers or ghosts but there wasn’t really anything to lose. She’d rather be dead than being in an event where she feels invisible.


She walked towards people who were about her age. All of them smiled at her which causes her to smile too.


“Your car died?” asked a short haired girl.


“Yeah, this day *****. Life actually *****.”


“If that ain’t the truth.” She and the short haired girl smiled at each other. People there talked to her, asked her questions, but never asked for her name. She never knew their names. What is this place? Is this a labyrinth?


“I hope you guys don’t mind me asking but, what do you do here?” For the first time, she was getting curious about things again.


“We live here.” One of them replied.


“You live here? Like you sleep inside the cars?” She asked. She wondered how can they do it. What do they eat? Where do they take a bath? Do they even have some money?


“Yeah, you can say that.”


“I’m sorry if I ask too many questions but how did you guys meet? Like, were you all friends before or did you just meet here?”


“We all met because of one thing, our cars suddenly died and we had nowhere to go. Actually, two things, our cars were **** and we wanted to walk away from our problems.”


She immediately felt goosebumps after she heard that. She thought she was crazy when she thought this was actually a nonexistent place but she was right all along. Nonetheless, she wasn’t scared anymore. Truth be told, she was enjoying herself. This felt a lot better than everything. She actually thought of not leaving this place. At least people here understood her, at least they were like her. All of the people were already sleeping, and she thought maybe she could use some sleep too. She was supposed to close her eyes already when the long haired guy suddenly approached her.


“Are you sure with your decision?” he asked out of the blue.


“What decision?”


“You sure you wanna walk away from everything already?”


“What? I’m just sleeping. When my car stops being ****, I’ll leave immediately.” He didn’t seem to believe her, she thought.


“You’re enjoying here, aren’t you?” She didn’t reply, she knew that the boy already knows the answer.


“I was like that too, you know? I thought this was the place where I can finally be free. I finally walked away from my problems, I don’t have to deal with ****** things anymore. That’s what I thought.”


“It looks like that’s what’s happening, actually.”


“At first it was. It felt good. Until I realised that walking away from everything isn’t the solution. It doesn’t make things right, it actually makes it worse. The fact that you didn’t even try to fight is the worst thing.” She felt it. She felt his pain. She didn’t even know if he was still a human being but one thing is for sure, she felt it.


“But I tried, you know? I tried everything and life is still ****.”


“I get where you’re coming from. Let me guess, you were an achiever who suddenly became a loser?” She didn’t answer him, for the second time, he knows the answer.


“I was like that. I was doing fine with everything and I was a dummy for thinking that I would do much better when I move. But I didn’t, I became worse. I went down. It ******, you know? I cried myself to sleep every night, I became invisible to people, my talent and passion were suddenly gone. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I didn’t feel living, I just felt like I was existing.” She never thought she would find another person who would understand her. Everything he said was everything she felt. She was left speechless after that.


“But I was more dumb to think that the best decision was to run away. I heard all about this place ever since before. I drove all the way from my place to here, thinking I could escape it all. That’s not the right decision. I was stupid for thinking that I could reach my destination immediately without having a journey. I was stupid to think that I can just drive for 1 kilometre and be at the place I want. It doesn’t work like that, life doesn’t work like that. There will always be a journey, a journey where you’ll feel **** but you will also learn and grow.”


“So you regretted your decision?”


“Let’s just say I was too late.” She couldn’t find the right words, she didn’t know what to say.


“Look, I don’t want to be the one who decides for you. Maybe you’re so fed up of everything, I get it. But I’m just asking you to think about it, before everything is too late. And piece of advice, if you decide to leave here, please, don’t ever look back.” They looked at each other in the eyes, knowing they had this connection and understanding of each other. Tired, sad, and hopeless eyes.


And just like that, he disappeared. She was left alone with her chaotic mind of hers. This was everything she wanted, to finally walk away from everything. She thought about things thoroughly, that was when she realised that what she wanted so bad before caused her so much regret. She thought about her old self, the one who was full of life. She looked at the stars and saw how dark the sky is, but the brightness of the stars still overshadowed its darkness. She wasn’t like a star, she was nothing like it for she let her darkness overshadow her. But perhaps she could try. She could try again.


She knew she lost almost everything, but her attitude of always trying was still there. She was still here because she remained strong despite everything. She never realised that, and now she’s glad she finally does. She got up and started to walk away from the car junkyard. Epiphany hit her, this is the place she’s supposed to walk away from. The darkness, the surrendering, the giving up. She was trying hard to not look at the car junkyard for one last time, and she succeeded. There’s no looking back.


She went to her car and miraculously, the engine finally started. She took a deep breath, turned the radio on and she smiled when her favourite song played. She didn’t know where she was going, but one thing is for sure, she knew where she belongs. *And after that moment, she drove.
jeffrey robin May 2013
Junkyard dogs

We play
Our PARTS
so miserably well
..

The impresario smiles
So sarcastically
-----
Dogs
-------------

Looking fierce
Tough and mean
--
Puttin on a show!

Tough and mean

------

In the junk heap of the yard

Falling in love with our pain

--

Junkyard dogs

Playing with misery

Making it our own
Nat Lipstadt May 2016
~for Marion~

all poets are junkyard scavenger connoisseurs

who wear suits to Manhattan faculty afternoon tea parties,

broken-in jeans to Brooklyn midnite poetry slams,

regalers, tall tale storytellers, subway words pickpockets

of the  extra-ordinary,

claiming innovations but from all saints stolen,

insights inside other's waste,

refusing to acknowledge the true owner's title

by fusing other's refuse.

the original recyclers,

junkyard dog liars,

willful sufferers of the plague of overhearing,

exceptional excerpters of the gems of coal dust noise,

"Connoisseur of old thoughts
Bound in new gilt bindings"*


them's me.


~

12:37am may eighth
Collectors

by Marion Strobel

The barnacle of crowds—
Like a tuck
On a finished skirt, unnoticed—
He collected his material
Covertly:
A ragpicker,
A scavenger of words.

And the gleanings
Of his hearing
He would costume
In his own words,
And parade before
A listener.

So that now,
Across the tea-cup,
He was telling
Of his research,
Of his study,
Of his deep thought-out
Conclusions.

And the lady,
Connoisseur of old thoughts
Bound in new gilt bindings,
Smiled approval
At the finding
Of another curio
To place
In her long gallery.


This poem is in the public domain.



Marion Strobel was born in 1895.
Ken Pepiton Nov 2018
How we start is only part of what we eventually do.

Physically that's easy to see. Being human, adamkind,
we see weak starts often in life.
Colts or pups born a week too soon can be loved to lives as pampered pets,
Siring toys for the enjoyment of those who can afford to fuel them,
For generations, with never a single care,
Past that initial trauma and subsequent subjugation to the will of man.

I don't tell horse stories, dog stories or war stories, if I can keep from it.

But when you want to demonstrate the purest of payback,
revenge getting the bad guy in the end,
having a horse be the hero makes behaving like an animal
more noble to the mind of vengeful man.
It's not true, revenge being noble.
That's a very old lie.

Law is to prevent error by disallowing failure. Law.

Relative to the rest of God's creatures, we, adamkind, seem dependent, weak and vulnerable next to bears being weak
a way-less long time
Than we.
We come into this world weak as a baby anything and we stay that way longer
Than any living creature.

I am an American, by birth.
I was not born to a political party or a family with political roots,
"I ain't no Senator's son."
Still,
I was reared drinking mythic cherry wine
sprung from George's failure to lie
Regarding his woodman's knack with a hatchet.

Sitting on the fence rail Abe split,
town fathers where I lived
were said to have decided the most harmonious of towns
have only gainfully employed darker folks,
while white
trash was allowed to loll around because they was
some employer's kin by marriage.

It all seemed pretty normal, as a child.
The loller-arounders let kids listen when they told
Their friends, who could not read, what the newspapers said.

One block from my house there was a vet's and hobo's flop-house clad in corrugated tin, rusted-round the nail-holes all the way to the ground and the rust had spread, so at sunset,...
I only recall the single story shed having one door.
There were always old white men sittin' on the southside of the shed. At sunset, those old men's whispy white hair

appeared as white flowing mare's tale clouds under
a scab-red wall held up by old men with sunset shining faces...

It was a big shed, a low barn, a bunkhouse,
eight or ten 4-foot tin-sheets long on the north and south
Windowless walls.
The one door was on the south side.
Once I saw an old man selling red paper buddy poppies.
He was missing both legs about half-way up his thighs.
The poppy seller rode a square board that had what I think were
Roller-skates, the key-kind, with metal wheels about a 1/2 inch wide.
Nailed to it's bottom. He had handles made from a carpenter's saw
Without it's blade. He pushed himself with those handles.

That looked fun, to a four-year old.
It looks different now-a-days. Knowing
Those red poppies symbolized
The after math automatics of the war to end war.

Who knows the poppy-sellers son? He would be old.
Does he know how his father lost his legs, but lived?
Does he bear the curse of the curse that lost his father's legs?
Does he honor his father's cause or weep at the thought?

Enough is enough.
My family tree branched in America, but only one great grand-parent,
Three generations back from me, was rooted in this land.
My gran'ma's ma, a Choctaw squaw,
That rhymed fine,
But it's not true. My grandma did not know her parents. She was born an orphan,
And her father and mother were likely strangers.

1910 in southwest Arkansas or southeast Oklahoma or northeast Texas or northwest Louisiana
And the color of her skin is all that proved my American heritage.

My grandma was born poor as poor can be,
she never told me how she survived

To survive a 1925 or so car wreck
in eastern Arizona's white mountains.
I never asked what my grandmother knew,
nor how she came to know.

This is my point.
After you and I have gone into forever more,
Our great grand children may wonder
what we did or did not, since we
Are no longer around to give our account.

These days we can leave our story to our great grand children.
Our own children
And our grand children follow us on facebook back to before they were born.
Shall they judge us idlers wielding idle words for laughs,
or  think us knowers of all we found while seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven
In the place Jesus says it is. You know where Jesus said the Kingdom of our kind lies?

The double minded man is unstable in all his ways,
hence Eve and her broader bandwidth corpus colostrum
Come back later, there is a breath system upgrade evolving.

Such changes to the courage of the mind rolls out more slowly
to the root ideas, labouring to find sustenance,
it is a struggle being a radical idea,
we agree, but we have our part,
as do the flowers
and the spore.
Leaven the whole lump, like it or lump it.

The now we live in grew from far deeper roots than
the roots claimed by the
Self-identified nation through it's cartoons/representations of national desires to rally 'round the flag as if it were the fire,
those desires to herd beneath any shelter from the storm,
Your country, your incorporated allegiance
to the inventor and creator and counter of the money under
the protection of the sword and crown representative
of the flame that burns,
The namers of patriot, the rankeers of ideas
who, by their existence,
naturally, over rule you.
Such powers are granted by the individual, not the mob.
You get that?

The desires of the nation over rule the desires of the individuals who
Com-prize the nation.
Whose side are you on, dear reader?

Is the idea we believed believable?
Ex Nihilo, I don't think so because
I can't imagine how now could be
Accidental-ly.

When my hero wore spurs as he went from the jail office to
Miss Kitty's place, (Gunsmoke on A.M. radio)

What did Miss Kitty do?
I had no clue.
In my hero's world people never
Did the wrong thing
While Marshal Dillon was in Dodge.

So did you think Miss Kitty's place was anything other
than a culturally acceptable
reference to professional social ******* workers
under a strong, smart female CEO
with top-level links to the local cops?

All these are rhetorical questions, this being
Rhetorical if you are hearing me say this.
That means, don't nod or raise your hand or shout Amen, kin!

I see your answer my answer and
I know my answer, so you know my answer.

Step-back, 1961, USA Snapshot
Unitas, Benny Kid Perett, Mantlenmarris, the Guns of Navarone.

Why I recall those things, I know not.
Why I did not say I do not know, I do not know.

Though, pausing to think,
knowing contains the doing of it within it, you know.
What's to do?

Outlaws were more my heroes than cowboys, and marshals, and such
Especially the ones that had been forced out by law.

I grew up in a 1950's junkyard with no fence, one mile north of route 66
On the Al-Can highway to Las Vegas, 103 miles away.
My Grandpa was a blacksmith's son,
who rode a horse he broke and his pa had shod
From Texas to Arizona in 1917, at the age of 18.

by the time I knew him,
He was fifty, settled down, nearly, from the war.
Momma had to work, so, daytime, Granddaddy raised me.

Horses weren't, wrecked cars were,
the toys of my childhood.

Grandpa built a junkyard from cars left steam blown
on the old stage road, from before
the railroad.
The Abo Highway hain't been Route 66 for some time yet…
Hoping…


Hoping sometime to polish this bit of this book, I left myself re-minders
Hoping memory of mental realms might rewind or unwind sequentially
When trigger
Neighed.
That worked, Roy Autry and Gene Rogers were names Sue Snow's
Mormon Bishop granddaddy called me,
back when I first recall My Grandpa Caleb,
a baptist by confession,
who was,
as I recall a *****-drinkin' jolly drunk.
While Grandma made beds in some motel,
granddaddy built boats and horse trailers
and hot rod 34 Chevies,
and he fixed this one red Indian, I could read the word on the gas tank, I knew the word Indian
and this motor cycle was proud to wear the name. I was 4.

A stout-strong man, no fat near any working muscle system,
he could and would
repair any broken thing,
for anybody. People called him Pop.
Pop and Mr. Levi-next-door at the Loma Vista Motel, shared a listing in the Green Book,
so broke down ******* knew where help could be found
after dark in that town.
There was a warnin'ag'in
let'n sunset there
on darker than grandma's skin.

My Gran'daddy's shop had two gas pumps
that were reset to begin pumping with the turn of a crank.
As soon as I could turn that crank,
I could pump gas.
I could fill up that red Indian
Motorcycle.
But "m'spokes was too short
to kick the starter."
I told my eleven year old uncle
and he told
how he would always remember learning
that saddles have no linkage
to horse brakes.
"Not knowing what you cain't do
kin *** ye kilt."

He grew up in the junk yard, too.
My first outlaw hero.

Likely, I am alive today, because
On the day I discovered I could pump gas as good as any man,
I also discovered that real motorcycles were not built for little boys.
This is an earlier voice which I wrote a series of thought experiments. The book is finished, most parts, some reader feedback as to interest in more, will be high value gifts from you to me, and counted so.
Alice Dec 2010
little lights, flame flickers

pale skinned lip lickers

red blood, warm flood

gold crown, made of mud

heart rippers, teeth gritters

white knuckled blood givers

i am a fist clenching, teeth wrenching

ear splitting, muscle tensing

junkyard liver, death giver

pale skinned lip licker
© Jenna A. 12/25/2010
Sentimental person, stars in your eyes and longing in your heart.
Looking everywhere but within, broken. Sentimental person, lost and stolen.

Leaning on a falling shoulder, drowning in another man's tears. Everybody running,  running from you.

Always knew you were pretty, but never truly understood your beauty; your worth tossed aside like an old rug or blanket.

Never stepping back, never taking a breath, your worn out body on overdrive. Spending your days in a psychological prison, a suicidal mind; a deadly master.

Walking with armored shadows by your sides, defending you from adulation and affection. Much like a wealthy man in an infamous alley, the territory of an infamous criminal.

A daily shedding of tears. The hot waxy tears of a candle rolling down your charred cheek. You continue to burn alone, ever surrounded by darkness.

Always reaching out for others, until your arm is ripped off, now you're limbless; disabled, stuck in the mud.

A waste of space, according to your unjustified terms, a lonely species that serves no purpose.

Fearing yourself, hiding yourself and disregarding yourself. Labeling yourself as a burden to others.

Ghostly smiles and ill-suited facades, eyebrows dragging themselves towards the earth's centre.

A body-builder's weight on your soft-jointed feet, the mass of your lonely misery strapped to your fickle ridge.

Being used; you in exchange for your acceptance. Clinging to past love because your present has none.

Enduring the pain of stationary motion,    going nowhere fast, constantly crashing into tragedies, repeatedly ramming into heartbreak.

Walking with cracked and bleeding soles, like an American Slave, whip marks on your back, a result of self-induced punishment.

Every wake is unwanted, everyday painful. Living for you, is like sea salt on a new born wound, only it never seems to heal.

Your body taken over by plaguing parasites, under your own toxic control. Forced to walk to the beat of a tormentor's drum, your tormentor, you.

Your tongue removed, unable to express yourself. Even in the tongue's presence, pain forces you to keep your mouth shut.

Nearing the Precipice, afraid of jumping, but desperate to be hauled off. Anxious to fall into the river down below, the River of The Dead, where, in your hopes, life is happier.

Your wrists and chest like sliced beef, every tear drop accompanied by the unwilling swipe of your razor blade. The redness of your being splashed onto the floor, then wiped away before anyone notices.

Hiding in a thorn bush from your predetermined destiny, each day comes and thorns dig deeper into your blue skin. Thick needles that you've become physically immune to, thick needles that still emotionally hurt.

Sharks further below circle around your tasteless body, patiently waiting to change you, rearrange your features, devour you for their own satisfaction.

Plebeian people disguised as friends, they show passing interest in your melancholy,  your sadness is what they will soon forget.

Wandering and stumbling in a plain white plane. No colour, no sound, no mercy, no gain. Trapped in Dysphoria. Trapped in a worm hole, eternally alone.

Forever falling into a bottomless pit, a hole reserved for the undeserving. But unlike other times, the rope let go of you. The rope that you clung tightly to, the rope that gave up on you.

One tone played on your broken piano, dysfunctional instrument. Your second chance stolen from you, your body deemed as junkyard worthy and thrown into the jaws of a junkyard dog.

Your mirror image distorted, visions clouded, unrecognizable is your face and your pupils, a vacant shell where your soul once hid.

Relying on heavy drugs after heavy drinking becomes ineffective. Heavy feet, a heavy heart, heavy burdens, heavy sadness.

Given a useless name by those who never knew you, forced to go by it, forced to go by them.

Your sweet pink lips hiding, behind them, bitter secrets. Secrets that you've become too ashamed to discuss even with yourself in the darkest night.

Cut short by the knees, not given a chance to run like the others. You've no choice but to let the storm cloud rest on your soft-haired skull. And when the cloud releases its rain, the drops are sharp like daggers. They shock and stab and hurt like the truth.

Your teeth white and pure, are the prison bars that trap you inside you, your smile is now your limited daylight break, a breath of barely fresh air before returning to your forcible detention.

Sentimental person, wallowing in your pitiful emotion, an undesired sensation that seems to follow you physically.

Emotional person, more valuable than you think; more exceptional than you Know.
anastasia Apr 2022
I was molded by his own hand
sculpted to perfection and eager to please
who else other than my husband
for without Adam, there is no Eve

at least, that was before he slithered into our perfect life
pounding our perfect garden into the ground with his slick feet
conniving and a brute,
he convinced me to take a bite
and share my fruit with man
for what is mine is his
my knowledge is his

I am his

together we ate
snacking and licking our fingers with glee
wiping the secretions of the fruit of mankind
against the tree we tore it from

until our Paradise's pastures declined
the wildflowers overtrodded with weeds
the singing waterfall vanished
only to be replaced by an evil, magmatic spout

and our tree,
our once bountiful, glorious, fruitful tree
decayed from the inside out

Adam's burning glare rotted my fruit and my seeds
until they and I dropped to the burning embers on the ground
like nicks off of a pebble that was thrown too hard
or like hairs from the back of a matted mother cat
that has spent far too many heatless winters hunting
for a different life,
for any life

with no more than a curse from Him,
I became the failed experiment of humanity
tossed into God's own graveyard
left to rot with my stolen seed
Lee W Jun 2012
We sat on rooftops drinking 40oz of courage
and running toward the edge
Stopping just before we fell.
Throwing bottle after bottle at the tent city below
screaming vulgarities into the night sky

We were the kings and queens of the west,
jumping trains going nowhere
saving up only to throw away
The backwash of a wasted youth culture
An I don't give a **** attitude, that we proudly displayed on our jackets.

Lovers on the lam, and killers on the run
Shoot first and ask questions later adrenaline junkies
Staring into the endless void of space and demanding more
Nomads in the land of our fathers.
there wasn't a problem we couldn't solve, that our parents didn't create

Hailed for our creativity, under fire
A reckless bunch of screaming children, waving their flags higher
Raising their voices louder
And taking shots in the dark.

We were the soldiers of the junkyard, true warriors of virtue
Proud of the heritage we created, and the everlasting bonds formed in blood
Were the few among many, the voice of the people
we were foolish to think that it would last.
Scraps of Cardboard taped together, over a blue recycling box, with a long backing to rest a royal back on, so became his highness' throne ,His staff is made of intertwined hangers, bent and manipulated to weave together, and at the top is gutted tennis ball spray painted red, his crown is made of fast food cup trays, that are also sprayed a royal color, his cape is part of an old tattered carpet, as to resemble a majesty's robe, so as he graciously walks and takes his place seated, on his throne before his loyal, to royals minions, and though the gust of winds brings a raunchy, putrid, rotten garbage heep smell, it is still the stench of his village, and although his court jester, is a homeless man sir Chester, he is still a loyal follower, and even though this forgotten wasteland, with a mot of spoiled milk, it is still his land, and so as the king begins to speak, he welcomes you, to his enchanted castle,the one you insist on calling a junkyard..... Long live the king....
Lysander Gray Jun 2015
The winter here is proper,
not like the weak attempts
of childhood.

I put on one of my father's old records,
and sinkdrown
into the swirl
of old memories -
the scent of oil and wood
his workshop
the musicdrone of cicada's
(that signaled the arrival of hot summer sweat and slick)
the scent of musk mixed with coffee grinds
and bodyperfume made sick with wine.

Old roofs
in the distance -
redwashed and orange
by the blood of a dying sun,
trickle blue smoke
from the mouth of an ancient-
         Baal of cold nights
         Suburban Moloch.

Hands are turned palecold.
Dove's once ,
dexterous fish now -
white and roasting
on the hot whisper
from a cup of coffee,
sometimes they
(mechanically or artfully)
invoke the means
to my own blue trickle.

A time machine
to that junkyard of stolen moments
we christen "memory".

Yet the sun still bleeds
and the sky is cauterised
by it's sacrifice.
Marissa Navedo Mar 2012
Everything fades.
forgotten elements compile,
neglected .
I never thought,
I would be tossed aside like a rusted hubcap.
Amongst all the *******,
corroding silently
We walk out the black back door
With the broken glass window
At the warrant of a smoke
I let you lead me into the dark outside
Through the yard of twisting,
Tall sculptures made of tires,
Bottles, barbed wire, and foam

You grab my hand and fit me
Beside you in the circle consisting
Only of artists, some of whom
Stand, some of whom sit on old
Couch cushions, or lawn chairs
Which have been decaying
Underneath the wet, ***** snow

We, the huddled mass of jean
Jackets, knitted scarves, and nihilism,
Pass around a legal joint and cigarettes
Whose smoke rises into the fog
Of a mid-November midnight
As we freeze, and add laughter
To the hum of cars whizzing past
On the one-way side of 2nd Street

You and I find our place among
The artists, on a chair not once
Built with the intention of sustaining
The weight of two, but you ask
If I’ll sit on your lap anyway
And more than willingly, I oblige

We are now a part of this crowd—
The Burning Man drop-outs,
Too cool for our own selves
We shiver and vibrate in time
To the neon, changing streetlights
And not-too-far-off police sirens
And it is here, in your lap, surrounded
By the rubble of an artist’s junkyard
I look up and mouth /I love you/
And you mouth it silently back

-E (c) 2018
Zoe Sue Feb 2015
She's thoroughbred hunger
From her double shift mom to her deadbeat dad

She tiptoes through junkyard junglegyms
Collecting alleyway beach glass

She learned to swindle
Haggled survival with the big guy
Big sisters traded on corners

She was one
Karma mustve forgotten
While doing rounds

She's got an invincible soul
Stitched of disappointments
Wrapped in sorrow
Hope as a bow

He's thoroughbred gluttony
From mommas limelight jewels to daddy's sin-shined shoes

He learned to swindle
To thrive
Wall street walk on the 99%

Politician promises
To impermanent faces

Costly trips
To extravagant places

Mixing up "enough"
With "more"

Looking for happiness
In a store

Though it seems to me
Whats made of life
Is what makes life worth living for
the newbie failure complex(ity)

the poems come torrentially,
hurricane, waterfall & tornado are working adjectives
worthy of the task, yet unequal to the unlimited army
of the written dead of unread poems and poets
that occupy the nether of blog, podcast, and poetry sites,
orphan stars in the un-salvaged junkyard galaxy of verbiage

a faceless wight, once alive, now permanently dead,
we shuffle march, chanting each our own newbie poem,
onward soldiers to ignominy and glory so fleeting,
we are forgot before we are remembered

this is life in poetry,
or better yet,
the worst of it, (sigh)
this is the poetry of lives


all for nought,
nought for all,
at least we pass our prison time
in the company of fellow strugglers
poem #1
Leal Knowone Apr 2016
ghost are jamming in the witches house
See dark visions forced to come out
There is a fox in the hen house
What'll we do to bring it down?
You opened the cage and let the monster out
You'r the prey in its mouth
Theres a rat in the dog house
How will we chase it out?
Ghost are jamming in the witches house
What was done to bring them out?
See em run, see them scream and shout
I see it all burning down

Time heals all wounds & it also will leave scars
Old memories fall like dying leaves
Rust metal minds junkyard
Minds masked in a maze, couldnt see that far
Old memories fall like dying trees
Twisted metal minds junkyard

Grotesque faces of pure pain
Empty hearts of unwarrented rain
Souls of the dead called to the purge
Can you feel the weight of this world?
I see deformites of this life
Skulls of the dying, solid is the mind
Feel the air passing by
Holes in happiness lined in social class

Old memories fall like dying leaves
We all fall like dying tree

The dogs of war are on the prowl
Should have escaped, but cant leave now
For there is nothing left of my youth
Nothing left to hold on to

There is a mouse in the walls
The hounds of hell are on the loose
the dogs of war are on the prowl
?Should have escaped but cant leave now
The ghost are jamming in the witches house
See the visions forced to come out
Pick the locks then break it down
Welcome the hardships to this house
Skye Marshmallow Sep 2017
Your eyes are lit up sliver,
With the cool glow of tinfoil stars,
Entranced I dream to grab your hand,
And fly to our rusty button mars,
Through skies jeweled with bottle caps, paper scraps,
And all things unknowingly sentimental

Tonight will be ours,
As we whizz through the junkyard sky,
Our hands laced together,
This galaxy is for just you and I
Another poem about the sky... :)
Kristen Prosen Mar 2010
It was an ostrich who asked me
to give stick my head in the ground.
He looked like what you think
an ostrich would look like, with his head in the dirt,
and the bright, pastel lights,
that come with things
from your imagination.
I colored him with crayon.
I could make rainbows with crayons back then.

I wish someone told me
what it meant, to get lost
in the dirt. I became a stray dog
digging all those holes.

I lived in a junkyard. The one on the side
of the highway next to the billboard
the Christians put up to help stop divorce that said
"Honey, Come home. The kids and I love you."
I slept in the back seat of a car with fleas
and ticks, stealing my food from a truck stop diner
until the day someone took the car away.
I had nowhere to go so I stopped
licking myself and left the junkyard to become the man
I am today. I got myself a job and started sitting
in the front seat. I even have a bed now with nothing

between me and the mattress but a sheet.
I have a taste for gin and girls who are buried
in borrowed wedding dresses.
I still lick myself sometimes because
old habits aren't easy things
to quit, like asking for extra
fortune cookies, hoping I will get something
good this time.


I shouldn't have been a man. I should have
been a bird, like the one who told me to
write stories in the dirt and whisper tales to the gnarled roots
of unnamed wild flowers. And never illustrate, he told me,

especially with crayon. You could get lost searching
for fortune at the tip of a crayon.
Let me know what you think.
You're the usual compliment guy
Telling women how beautiful they are
And how much better you would treat them than their boyfriend
Who you keep insulting
You are like the ***
Picking through bones at the junkyard
Searching for a part you can use
With no care factor about the
Wreckage you rip it from
But at least you found that usable part
And now you convince yourself that
The car is better off without it
And aren't you so great
You scrapped that girl for junk parts
And blamed it all on her ex mate
Junkyard jockeys, like you
Always come in late
Hal Loyd Denton Jan 2012
Lost love

I will relate this true unforgettable love story the desert is a forlorn lonely place it runs the gambit stark even sullen and then at
A single turn it enthralls captivates and then the many moods feelings in-between it could really be a telling of human life in so many
Ways my memory of Salt lake is a nice one we were moving to California I remember the climb up the mountain that was some what
Unpleasant I even stopped in Laramie Wyoming had the U Haul checked out it acted like it had a four banger engine would cut out on
The straight a ways and it wasn’t that long ago back then that I put ten cars in the junkyard they were too old and I was two young I
Tried to out run and out do Robert Mitchum when he played a southerner who ran white lighting in Thunder road the time I was driving
A long fifty eight Pontiac without a muffler on the back roads to Herrick town was sort of a reenactment the muffler came off a few
Nights before I don’t understand why my mother left the car behind when she and sis went to Pennsylvania with her sister she even
Took the keys with her talk about lack of trust what can a seventeen year old get into well in a long drawn out search a key was found
And more than usual group of guys were sleeping out why not leave lakers go up and take ma’s car out for a spin start out slow well
Out of the side yard anyway a little more tricking putting it back so past Black desert Ray Cherry’s on the back road to Assumption by
Now the accelerator is stuck to the floor the problem a lead foot anyone have teenagers driving pray good and hard I God and hands
of steel holding the wheel when literally my blood felt like it turned to ice water from the thrill that was now in God’s hands I hit the
small bridge back this way where the road turns back left where there used to be oil well operations right there I was flying low at one
Hundred and fifteen miles an hour soon would be Dukes of hazard air borne all four tires and car at least twenty five through the air
The front tire came down with a hard jarring bang ice water veins and a heavy wide poncho and God kept it upright went down turned
Around lost ten miles an hour of nerve went back one hundred and five miles an hour same little shorter flight but this time we
Landed right on top and in the middle of three chug holes if it had been the tire and it had went in I wouldn’t be writing this or anything else
But the muffler came off with a fine howdy doo as the car banged back on the ground so I gunned the car down by Besons turned it off
And coasted back into the yard went in and told a barley awake grandfather at two thirty in the morning how the county ripped off the
Muffler he fell for it next day I tried it on Ma all I got was right did rack off nice through the hills and bottoms. There is a high that goes with
Speed but there is also is a special quality that emerges out of slow deliberate movement as witnessed by my slow climb up the
Mountain pulling a T bird and a load of furniture more pleasurable on the down grades your still fighting not to over brake but the black
Night the air and the road the trees all enters your conciseness these feelings returned as Yvette set in studio and told her story it is
A story of youth, innocence lost to mindless cruelty it happened with the little dell reservoir shimmering bright under a full moon thats reson
Zack’s mother calls him the man in the moon and the purpose of the trip Zack was into black and white photography he
Wanted to photograph this lovely vision capture it where it would be a favorite item to share with his many friends it would be what
Lived on or at least one tangible part Yvette laid the background of the story how all through high school Zack and her were in all the
Classes together and when she would enter he would all ways make a comment she grew to enjoy and look forward to what he would
say it was tender young love taking it faltering first steps on this night he called and asked her to go she didn’t think anything of it she
Hadn’t done anything special as far as dressing in fact she had washed her hair hadn’t even dried it there is something basic naturally
Raw about a woman with wet hair whatever it is it causes the male heart to beat faster anything is powerful when left untamed. They would flash out to the place this story unfolded the quiet silence the full moon electrifying the water with a glorious sheen and the grass back lit with light causing the gold
Grass to beam without words or action there was a shout coming from nature’s heart and soul it reminded me of the modern western
I read thirty years ago called Goldenrod this perennial plant found in meadows served as the name of the ranch in the story. Yvette says as they
Turned into the final lane that led to the parking she felt a hint of a first kiss in the offing everything was picture perfect and it was nothing
Strange when the white pickup pulled into park that happened all the time at first the stranger kept his distance but he slowly worked
His way toward them finally just feet away he asked them where the path went to they gave him an answer she turned her back she
Said she hoped Zack turned also because at that moment the stranger pulled out a gun and started shooting the first shot killed Zack
He emptied his gun one bullet knocked her down then the shooting stopped then she realized he was reloading in that moment her
Father’s voice spoke in her mind if attacked by a grisly play dead more shots she felt the wind and speed of the bullets pass her head
One on the side caused a ugly exit wound but through it all being shot four times she lay still with her eyes open then the killer touched
Her leg she said she didn’t have a concept of being shot but now it was something that terrified her she thought he was going to ****
Her everyone thinks about that he put his face close to hers she could feel his breath on her neck his purpose was robbery as he went
Through her pockets he withdrew and she heard Zack’s car start later as she retold this two a group in Utah’s Capital building where
She is now a lawyer and a victim’s advocate it must have been strange to get in the person’s car you just killed and have Neil Diamond
Come an and sing. So when the gunfire died down and the night swallowed the terror a future wedding and life with Zack was forever
Gone his spirit dispersed among the stars and his spirit captured and held in natures wonder the new life reality capture was swift since
He left his vehicle his story an immigrant from Uruguay first stop New York then Utah unhappy with life he became obsessed with
Death he just wanted to watch someone die pathetic he was going to then **** himself guess what he had a change of heart got a plea
Deal to avoid the death penalty Zack’s family finally agreed they didn’t want the day twenty years in the future when he would be put
To death then the protesters do like they were doing as timing would have it in Texas at that very time praising almost the killer’s life
And demeaning the victim so he got life without parole then as a true snake has tried five appeals saying he was depressed at the time
This was his last appeal and finally the family has peace, Yvette suffered victims survival syndrome she left her heart on notes she left
On Zack’s grave it showed the depths of love that was dammed far more so than the little Dell ever could be Yvette married but the
Young man in the moon was to powerful a hold so she divorced she does have a seven year old little girl that helps push back the dark
Shadows of that night Zack sister was the one who had the children her one son bears her brother’s name and even looks like him
Yvette’s ending words was she just once to run up and hug Zack and talk to him about that night when love flew away on wounded
Wings to hurt to fly far so in the desert the wind whimpers love denied finds not a heart as its home lost fulfillment blows among the sage
In the eyes of a special woman there is a haunting stare you can read there torment sorrow pathos in the raw she found comfort
In service of helping others this is her and Zack’s story and severe as it is it is also a story of youth that is gone the same as our stories
I want to relate one other special story in this exaggerated time of *** nonsense without love or consequence or responsibility this
Happened in a youthful time of innocence it was moving touching and in one way reflects the time you fell in love this won’t get you
But as the saying says the glory contained in the rose comes by the price of pain from the thorn to walk in the past you can tear a hole
In the heart and soul where tears are stored in abundance I found this out for myself I set down from Carol’s house in tower hill at
a church in the parking lot as I relived those special moments between two people young innocent love that would ignite and through
Days and nights that were to short proved it wasn’t to be what was it I can’t really say but I’m sure you know as well as any of us can
know I know it came from left field not expecting it but it’s all right to cry in a church yard even if you’re my age any time innocence
And love is called or damaged it carries poignant painful waves to roll over you sometimes with other things at play in life they can be
Too much there is a song that says I wouldn’t take anything for my journey now no and neither would I take anything for my memories
Of friends and youth and lost love.
Robin Carretti Jul 2018
The beauty summons us to see
But it pushes us back to where
we want to be
So let it be I don't think so?
And if its just so why are you
dropping a hint

It's my call falling for him
Stairway to Brain heaven
The Godly lights epic picks
Start to  dim

Conquering him
The Christopher Columbus
The brains of America going out
of my mind

But falling for someone
please have a decent loving
heart humankind

I hear two people calling
Two brains are far apart

Our brain the happening
Your awakening to stretch
Play it smart
One drop falling

Two waterfalls
The Seasons summer
Your brain is
Springing eyes emerging
and falling in love
In the fall

New love calls
Sometimes the relationship
falls
The brain of the throne
All you see are dead head clones
Frankenstein met the blind man
His brain was wicked and strange
But changed to a kind man
The brain is governed by madness
Like your falling stars

Like the last laugh the class clown
Even you feel like your falling
In another outer- limit town
The brain is over your limit
something to fight off the
bad memories
  Or the enemies and the fight
Something you feel in your brain
Kicked the daylights out of you
And at night the moon is spinning
You don't know where it's turning
You're under the cusp fighting

Your arm wrestling but your mind is
Scarlet falling (Gone with the Wind) in
another direction
There is something in the way
With your brain needs
more affection
Like the endorphin

Reproduce repair damage
We need more fuel to kick start it
And gasoline it up
With the right outlook, it could be years
to understand but don't give up
I got a brain my (Cafe) shock full of brains
on my intellectual cup

  The sword up to experiment like
the sorcerer keeping some distance
to his lover
Your brain is an experience
like no other
The world is a brain
relationship it
needs to be worked on
My fuel is my Coffee
Welcome Hi  Chai Tea join me

The spiritual connection
feeding you
Staying healthy  looking up
All the greens kale or broccoli
The super brain women her
Superman
vitamins
The better balance
of life and good company
Your spiritual awareness
Somehow over thinking
got you careless
Don't let your brain
fall into a ditch
We are the world opens up
to everyone

And show your kindness from the
ridiculous to the sublime just ****
on a lemon or lime

Goes timber tree watch out you
were close enough to see it fall
Being selective this is not about
Taking electives starting to fail
Or falling he sees you high up on the
cliff
The beach-tropics more brain wired
topics taking a sniff
Your brain waves flooding your
vacation

Niagara Falls looking out the big
Mr. Anderson window hands
perfectly fall together
He had such a Fall-out with the
The manager he did fall for her
That heavy smoke the cigarette bud
Needed to be put out
You sneeze a wrong time to say
(God Bless you) you felt timeout
And what about the world
They must mean something
there all not
computer dummies

The barbecue nightmare
Did you go brain dead
But falling torrential rain
over bodies to be wed
The rarity of the mind fuse
has been
blown out
Like he saw falling stars so intricate
out of blown glass

( Florence Italy) a wedding started
to fall right
into place

The Royce Royce was as
white as her skin and wedding gown

But your used car needed a tune-up
All sounds of the motor clunk junkyard
Her brain was the volcano her mouth was
as loud
as the falling rocks
By the high up docks, where was her brains
no one heard you
On the deserted Island, the bird was
flying in flocks

The cortex of her brain rocks on
the  house drink

We love to watch the falling leaves
something you saw
On her white sheer blouse,
your teardrops
falling on her heart sleeve
Endless lifeless, loveliness,
All streams
But not your girl Brook_*

In October remember the falling
red fire the mass between the
Einstein brain of words
you got hired blinded by stars
Leaves were mixed the brown
warm cocoa
hot desire the  terra cotta-gold
The Villa seashore was sold
What we put in our brain is endless
We need to tightly hold

Our  kitten mittens her nose tip of the snow
So cold but someone is there to
pick you up when you fall
Do you believe falling in love is timeless
The brain can be many things like a drug perky more awake than others your brain can change your thinking like an engine in your car blinking the brain is everyone's fuel we are not in school this is more serious how the brain works
Crossroads are a particular

kind of place where mythology

and actuality combine,

mix and dance with your shadow.



Limitlessness has a name

and social security number

in your restlessness

and your ambitiousness.



I've performed in cafes and on street corners,

In bookshops and depots,

woods and public restrooms

with the junkyard profits

desperately clutching to my clothes,

refusing my money

but begging for my love.



But now I am at the crossroads.



The smoke from my soul

comes in, forces me to turn around,

turn around turn around,

and see the faces,

so many different faces,

all those who have

loved me,

mocked me,

befriended me,

mentored,

hated,

changed

maimed

spit in my eye

called me what they thought I was.



So many faces.

So many eyes full of dreams and ire.



How many would I come to know again?



Who would become fortune tellers

blues-men

teachers

cops preachers

mathematicians builders destroyers

soldiers of fortune

businessmen liars or junkyard prophets?



Who will become like smoke in the fog,

slightly hazy lost-boys

off to never-never land,

never to be seen or heard from

except for the cries that whisper

the time?



So many faces.



What will I be to them?

A companion

friend

liar

hater

lover

brother

sideshow

an I knew him when

a face that looks at their back

at the crossroads,

a wisp of smoke?



I turn again,

turn turn,

a cymbal shot

pushes me forward,

left and right,

but I can never go back behind.



Johanna whispers

Even salvation must get old.



I know she must be correct,

at least as far as I can turn my head.



The right is barred,

the left is guarded by the beasts,

the faces hum a dirge or a lullaby,

I straighten my jacket,

pack my self into a slip bag,

and blow away with the smoke.
Darby Rose Jan 2014
Jordan gave me rose quartz prayer beads. Freddy picked me up and spun me around.

I kissed the beads and kissed my hand and blew it to the stars, over and over again.
Thank you universe, for the kind hearted people you have dropped into my existence.
Thank you universe, for the good music, the good ****, good wine, and good company.
Thank you, for the smiles, the laughs, the cigarettes, the numbers given out on backs of receipts.
Thank you for the swing sets, the campfires, the coffee and tea, the cars we drive around in.
Thank you for emotions.
Thank you for the feeling I get when someone kisses my forehead,
the feeling when someone compliments my smile,
the feeling when I notice the moon for the first time that evening.
Thank you, for the moon, the stars, the clouds, and the autumn breeze.
Thank you for the sounds, the crickets, the leaves rustling, the clinking glasses,
and the sound of small kisses.
Thank you for the snort I get when I laugh to hard.
Thank you for the bass, the guitar, the drums.
Thank you for the shouts, the soft spoken, the loud, and the whispers.
Thank you for the doors, the staircases, and the windows.
Thank you for everything that ever was, is, and will be.
Thank you for the indefiniteness of the now.
Thank you for everything.

I once read in a book, that the likelihood of our proteins folding just so to make us what we are is comparable to that of a twister rolling through a junkyard and assembling a jumbo jet.
This is something I like to remind myself daily.
It is so miraculous that we are here today to experience everything and everyone around us, and be able to document and share it.
I hope one day someone can look at my photographs and writings and feel these immense and overwhelming emotions that I feel in these moments.
Jordan Gee Nov 2021
Heaven is an Eye fixed atop a triangle
embossed along panes of stained glass
in a burst of color and
embedded on a transom above
an arrangement of young Amish girls -
one of them flipping me the bird.
white bonnets shining inside the dark street
and red reflections of the night.

God is in a mirror
reflected across one thousand other mirrors
held by a single hand and adjusted thereby
so that the light would be refracted through
a bent corridor in time
bending and extending through
far away dimensions that
i don't even know about.

Beauty lies in the 6 skinny trees
i water on the fifth day
drinking coffee when i see
one thousand rose petals drying
like the shores of the salton sea
and the six trees like a
hexagram of six dragons
like Heaven over Heaven in the sky.

one time I saw this image in my mind
when i closed my eyes
a vision of fire shaped like a phoenix
burned across the red horizon of my mind.
beyond the black behind the lids of my eyes
there is a red horizon over inner city deserts,
bird beaks buried in the sand.

I must honor the body’s lived experience
yet not give it any credence over Spirit.
its like i was being taken over and consumed
by a Greater Being.
it pressed all my memories up against hard glass.
different angles through extra spectrums -
it was raining hard prisms
It was like laser beams everywhere.
like heaven over heaven in the sky.

I was ripping off layers like a nest
of ten rattlesnakes tangled up in braided rope.
now there are magnets that float around inside my head.
there are times i don’t know if I’m doing the thinking - or the listening -
or whose doing the talking but
there are magnets floating in my cerebral spinal fluid
and they are electric and they are on fire.
and if i only had binoculars then I could see the singularity,
the gift of eternal life at the eschaton.

Heaven is the wind that lifts me up by the insides.
i  relax so deeply into the present sometimes
i forget to breathe -
were it not for the magnets inside my spine
pulling me toward the singularity and
the eschaton and the Bright Lights.

there are such amazing playlists on spotify
artists and genres i’ve never even heard of.
thank God someone figured out what
these emotions sound like.
benedictions in southern pennsylvania
on the JBL charge 4
and i think i’m starting to accept
that life in the earth plane is
a baptism by electric fire.

Glory be to God in the highest for
sending me His messenger
winging words made of silver helix
strands of vibrating concept complexes
so the mercury can bring the sulfur to the salt.

I throw my head back and laugh like a junkyard dog.
i’ve been searching for the philosopher’s stone for years!
i just called the chase by other names
and searched for it where i thought it was to be found,
where they told me it would be:
court street and MLK blvd, Newark, NJ,
trap house, Grant St, Hazelton, PA,
the American Club, red light district, Agana, Guam.
somewhere in the Pacific or a fist full of wax bags
from my partner ****’ down pembroke outside bethlehem, PA
and a ten pack of clean B and Ds, small gauge,
waiting for me on his kitchen table.
Heaven over Heaven in the sky.

I checked my phone over three hundred times today.
mostly this is a wretched habit of unconscious hand but
quite often the Everywhere Spirit gives me personalized
messages of rapid ascension via all the “woke” social media handles.
there is a fire inside my heart and it burns me from the inside.
sometimes it opens so wide you can fit the whole world in there
and not lose any elbow room.
and the magnets carry me to the tallest pedestal in the
sky where everyone can hear and
i tell them everything is going to be ok.
i’ve seen the bad path and i’ve walked it
and God placed magnets in my blood and
i made it back alive and all the church bells are ringing.

the Holy Ghosts of our ancestors rejoice for the
cutting of the silver chords so they can
all fly away home to heaven.
and through the grave yards that lost their church bells with the churches
i walk with bells in my hands and i ring them so
that all the ghosts can go home.

we had a heart opener one night.
we all sat around the floor and opened our hearts for each other.
they opened so wide that it rained electric fire to
where everyone could see it and that makes
for a good memory.
but nothing is as it seems,
nor is it otherwise
and my heart can suddenly slam closed like
the cellar door of leatherface’s texas prairie
subterranean basement lair.
and i’ve been there before
but the fire in my heart shines upon the faces
of the all devil’s dark armada
and they don’t scare me anymore,
such is the brilliance of the flame,
and such is the pull of the magnets god placed inside my blood.

its been more than ten winters since court street, newark.
but to this day i think sometimes about
that frozen cat lying by the curb.
stiff from all the jersey winter night prowlin
freezing up it’s blood.
my heart was closed that day,
hiding all my fire.
but if I saw that cat today, why…
i would open my heart so wide that
winter would be no more and
all the frozen hearts of our fathers and our mothers
would burst wide with such love that
the Earth would tremble and all the
neutron stars would shoot across the
red horizons of our mind
and the light of heaven would be
reflected in the mirrors of our eyes.
and this light would be so bright that
all the archangels and the devas would
be out of a job.

God is in the pinprick of light
fastened to the back of the
long tunnels of my eyes.
God is in the space after the release
of my preoccupation with the opinions others hold of me
God is in the street light shining on an
amish girl flipping me the bird.

By Jordan Gee
those who to Earth from Heaven came.
Brandon Webb Mar 2013
You put your face up right next to mine
and scream out a list of rights I don't have:
the right to make tea in the morning
the right to stay up past 9 pm
to carry mouthwash with me
to use my own soap
to hang my coat in my closet
to spend more than eight hours away from home each day
to change plans when away from you without telling you
(no matter how small the change)
to open my windows or back door without permission
to open the back gate at all
to speak when you are not present

I want to write a ******* autobiography someday
and have more than a chapter
and that chapter ain't even here:
If I sit and think about my life,
I have no real memories with you.
The memories that count are the ones spent away from you

Playing on the playground
of the apartments by the mill with two friends
(both of which are now ******* druggies)
or sitting in the back of his aunt's station wagon
when one of em backs into the mailboxes
(at the age of six)

Building forts in the woods at four corners.
Bonfires, frog catching and golf at Anne's.
Wandering trails while camping with them.

Running through the woods with ubie
building forts from old tires, grass clippings and sticks
and playing endless games of fetch with her.
Some days we'd walk the creek back to the fern grove
some days we'd skip rocks by the "waterfall"
and some days we'd slip under the barbed wire to visit the neighbors.

The old **** lab in Carlsborg
which we labeled as "the barn" since it was one-
had plenty of small passageways that we'd play  hide and seek in.
But some days we'd get bored
so we'd go past the church to the rock quarry and climb the hills
or we'd walk the trail as far as we were willing to go
or climb over the abandoned canopy into the neighboring field
and walk over to visit the horses and goats.

Port Angeles was long walks for me,
trails dark and ominous that always led to the park
or roads that always continued on forever,
until I found that one house that I used as an anchor.
Ryland was born there
So was me, not I, but me, the beginning of ME

Then there was Taylor cutoff-
A mile back in the woods
by a junkyard
and a quarter mile from the Dungeness.
I would walk the river most days,
past the farms near the hatchery,
where the power lines always crackled
and the abandoned barns called my name.
some days I'd take the bus to Sequim, others to PA.

Dabob was a trailer that we packed full of memories-
Pulling hoses up long hills to water small trees.
loading up the truck with wood chips for the yard.
rolling boulders into trees with the tractor.
Taking Ryland to the ER for croup.
And fitting three people into a five by ten room to sleep.
not to mention:
bonfires, fireworks, bobcats, mountain lions, 3 cults and *** farmers

This is the ****** though, Edmonds-
city life, and I'm ******* loving it.
I want to write myself a life, father
and I know where to do it
and how
and it ain't here under your oppression.

Three months and the story changes
b more Mar 2016
My grandmother likes salami, God, and bougainvilleas
I like to think she likes tenuous pink things-
but then there’s the salami.

One day she taught her daughters to string neck-
laces from bougainvillea petals
like-ponies-in-a-junkyard

I think I chewed too much bubblegum in mass
because I picture God pink
an ethereal globe of a poppable pale pink.
And for some reason, I like to think Brother
Charles saw that too

I bet my lungs are somewhat pink:
more pink than my berry red blood
but less pink, sweet and/or hairy
than a cotton candy poodle.
I forget if they were strawberries or rasp-
berries too

There are things that are pink
but then there are things that are pink
and shadowless.
Like subterranean lungs,
God, the future, and
the smell of flamingos in the dark

The future is still pink and
somewhat fruity
like a lukewarm strawberry milkshake blushing,

or was it maybe just the taste
of my pepto-bismol stained lips.

One of those ponies was my mom
Juhlhaus May 2019
Gravel mounds in the mist
Are the mountain ranges of fantasy,
Spring green, eerie seen
Through commuter train windows.

Pitched roofs recede
Into infinite distance,
And junkyard parking lots are legion
In the gray suburban obscurity.

Factories and landfills loom,
Monuments and mausoleums,
The labor and the leavings
Of the little colossi.
Musing on the view from a morning commuter train.
Luke Gagnon Dec 2013
I’ve whittled shelves into my body to try and bring an

order to things. All it did was make space.

So many shelves like staircases built in anger.

Winding forcefully

until they end right where I stand.


2. There are days I wash my face with vinegar

and soak my fists in horse *****. I use it to

conceal the musty smell of forgotten Bibles.


3. It’s while God is in my novels,

that I see my bedroom floor.

A junkyard of loose-leaf prayers,

my boots go out of their way to step on

dry crunchy ones.

I can hear the breaking, and it’s satisfying.

The acrid smell of fall

in my mouth,

I bite my lip just to feel the sting.


4. The phantom pain in my chest tastes like cotton

stuck to my teeth.


5. I am Leonid Rogozov in Antarctica, I’ve built my

staircase-shelves by cutting into myself,

only local-numbness needed.


6. No, my shelves are not staircases.

Shelves never extend forward. Just, upward.

A little too much like trees,

not permanent enough in the ground.


7. It all reduces to sawdust anyway, collected

on the bedroom floor.

I’ve been sweeping it up for 40 days now,

each day, a little more.

One day, the floor will be clean.


8. You say, “You are made of blessings.” I say, “No, I’m made of blood

and skeleton bones.”


9. I love You. You say you love me.

Some days, that’s enough.


10. Today, Just yellow-

brown pages and

nothing resembling gospels.


11. I wasn’t born, I just walked in

one quiet evening and started living


12. After every shelf I whittle I still ask,

What is numbered in my life?


13. Things will change, things will change.

Things will change.


14. I have layers and layers of papier-mâché skins you can thumb

through like pages.

You’ve peeled them away,

each becoming more raw and permanent.

The cleanliness worries me.


15. There are 17 different kinds of fractures:

non-displaced, complete, oblique, transverse, comminuted, greenstick,

simple, linear, incomplete, compound, compacted, avulsion,

compression, stress, impacted, displaced, spiral and fatigue.

Believing in You makes me tired.


16. ‘Post mortem nihil, ipsaque mors nihil’

Death built its own shelves

After My body was felled.


17. When it’s you resting on my tree-shelves,

I begin to see an end.

Books are the most efficient weapons in the world.
JR Rhine Oct 2016
My friends and I
are forlorn fabrics
haphazardly stitched into a quilt.

Comprised of different textures and fabrics,
frayed at the ends,
rejected pieces meant for the trash,
not good enough for made-to-wear mall clothes.

My friends and I
fit like a puzzle
consisting of pieces from various other puzzles--
found under coffee tables,
between couch cushions,
tossed into the bowels of forlorn toy bins--
forming a collage of something
disoriented and ambiguous.

Crammed together,
smashing our appendages,
leaving crooked gaps,
wrinkled, torn, ****** up,
but feeling better here
than in our small contribution
to the bland image of our factory's design.

My friends and I,
outcasts, rejects, punks,
convening in the junkyard heap
where we dance and laugh among trash
that makes us feel clean.
Pure when we're filthy.

Quilts and puzzles,
to instill and befuddle;
****** treasures.
Brandon Conway Oct 2018
When I first passed the gates
into the metallic garden
stamping out seeds
                      for the junkyard
with its infinite cardiac output

I gazed upon the eyes of the creatures
that inhabited this oily soil
                            of steel and chemicals
all I saw was a cry for help
to escape
          to be away
                just one day
they cry, just one day

I got caught in the claws
and it scratched
                       and scratched
the wounds heal but the scars stay

I have become a trapped animal
                                     with eyes of dismay

There's little chance of escape
I can dream
           I can pray
one day, I echo
               one day

Now I am just taxidermy
for this godforsaken industry
and they call this
quality.
KathleenAMaloney Mar 2016
Pounding Vigilance Fury
under the feet of the chained watchdog
Running
Back  and Forth
Back and Forth
Back and Forth
Toenails Sinking in
ripping  flesh of the Right Angle
Endlessly beating pain of Hopes very dying Fate
Merciful Mary.. Uplift THESE lives NOW
This command, Heaven
As the spear remains sharpened , readied for the fight
#no
Fred Kinard Mar 2013
I ...
Can't breathe....
It feels like the world is closing in on me
So I jog at the junkyard to release the stress
Inhaling trash to remind me of life the inside joke
I trip over some items and fall face first on a lamp
I pick up the lamp and rub it immediately
No Genie, no such luck
I laugh
Brush off my pants
And I think about the good old days
The days before freedom from the nut sac
The days I swam with millions
The days I never spoke a word
Life was easy
Life was ...
I...
Can't breathe...
LeavinaYeslek Feb 2017
Beneath the flesh
Torn open
Ripped apart
I can be salvaged-but why?
Dark clouds
Dark skies
Dark heart
Heavy insides
Falling-falling
Thick
Hot
Crimson
Deny me
Look away-look away
Beneath the flesh
Torn open
Ripped apart
I can be salvaged-but why?
Glossy
Cold
Candy coated lies
It's over
Beneath the flesh
Torn open
Ripped apart
I can be salvaged
*But why?
India Chilton Jan 2012
Going home is a rubber band snap
Knee-deep in a mind swamp
And the only way to avoid the snakes is to befriend them.


White picket fences spell adopted ideals
And horses are reminders that you’re not going anywhere anytime soon

The elk mounted above an unused fireplace says
I have killed what the desert could not


This town is like quicksand,
Consuming you slowly under a promise of rapid escape


The desert seems unkind until you realize that mercy
Is not pumping blood into anything to which you don’t give a shot at survival
Even if that means thorns and a bad reputation


Some creatures are strung out and inseparable like prayer beads around the wrinkled neck of the wasteland
Others have been deemed worthy of solitude
I do not know which category I fall into
If I did, perhaps I would not need a blacksmith and an armory in my morning shower


Having access to water in a place like this makes me feel like a snake charmer
Here in the valley, time is ground down into a fine powder
As if it is trying to become the thing that marks its passing
If we could bottle time, I think the universe would have enough of a sense of humor
To make the bottle an hourglass


Climbing tall things makes you powerful
Here, they blame it on the Vortexes
The local translation of guide-book enticement is gruff and solid and spat out like the chewing tobacco it is shot through
This valley’ll either **** ya in’r spit ya out, but one thing’s fer certain, it won’t do it gentle


When the rain comes in its flooding frustration
I would like to tell it that the ground does not accept what it is not accustomed to
I would like to tell myself the same thing
And would, if I could be swept away as easily


The roads are strong
Still they crumble away at the edges to blend in with the dirt
So do the people
People you know
become people you knew
When your conversations grow punctuation marks


Whoever made this desert knew that some people like leftovers
And mystery meatloaf Mondays
They knew how to sell minimalism in a junkyard
Extending ten fingers beyond old motels and rocking chair cigars
To nudge the shoulder of the Lord with a whisper
Hold me like Shiva and sweet release


I will be the one spat out by this desert
I will arrive spinning like a waterslide cannonball
Into two-sided evolutionary discussions and
Yes, please, make that latte soy
No pamphlets at my doorstep
And a population who is okay with naked mountains and empty skies
Like I am


Maybe that means I’m irrational,
Condemned to questions without answers
But **** it, being lost is preferable
To being found by everyone but yourself
David Nelson Oct 2013
"Stay Away"

You gave me too many chances
Now it's drivin' us apart
I keep on runnin' with the boys, girl
But then you knew that from the start
It must keep building up inside you
'Cause you never let it show
I know I'm hanging on the edge now
But I won't let go

I never meant to hurt you
But something was on my mind
Just give me one more chance
We can make it this time

Stay away, stay away from my heart
Stay away, stay away from my heart

If you gave me three wishes
I'd throw two of them away
I've seen that look in your eye girl
I'd use the last one this way
We've been from rags to riches
But your love can't be bought
I'm just a junkyard dog, girl
Who's afraid he's been caught

You're standing in the shadows
Watching everything that I do
And I know the way things must look
It couldn't be further from the truth

Stay away, stay away from my heart
Stay away, stay away from my heart

[Bridge:]
Remember how it used to be girl
Makin' love like it's the last time
We held each other close
Not knowing what we'd found
You felt the pounding of my thunder
As your rain was pouring down

[Instrumental break]

I never meant to hurt you
But something was on my mind
Just give me one more chance
We can make it this time

Stay away, stay away from my heart
Stay away, stay away from my heart
Stay away, stay away from my heart
Stay away, stay away from my heart

Steve Lukather

Gomer Lepoet....
from TOTO - the band not the dog :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K2R_4qGgKQ

— The End —