Asphalt Poems

In a world where shadows stretch across asphalt streets

In a world where shadows stretch across asphalt streets,
the modern man searches for his soul among dazzling advertisements,
alienated, stripped of ancestral creativity,
transformed from a creator into a silent consumer,
his smile, a mask on a billboard,
bearing the pride of a scentless existence,
in a world where presence becomes absence,
and essence is lost among useless objects,
our souls are just echoes in empty boxes,
and in every perfect smile hides a silence,
a silent cry for meaning, for a rebirth,
but we are trapped in mazes of shiny packaging,
where time is measured in products and not in moments,
and we, prisoners of a prefabricated dream,
lose ourselves in reflections of a distorted reality,
seeking to find, in this deafening silence,
the answer to the question we've forgotten to ask,
in a universe where authenticity is a luxury,
and truth, just a distant dream we chase,
while we dance on the edge of a collective oblivion.

ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE ASPHALT stupefying vision

If the people against, the true deniers
could change life
and rebuild the world, they:
Would erase all progress
that exists today,
and return to a nonexistent "glorious
time" of the past...
they would create a world of their own...
where the strongest
would command everything...
There would be a democracy
only for them, where they would determine
who should and who should not...
where permissiveness would reign
for proselytes and dura lex
for the rest...

Conflicts would be resolved
with bullets by those disguised
by power...
To the rich friends, everything...
all power, all glory...
To the poor... all honor
of serving the powerful with
promptness, servitude and quality...
IN BED, TABLE AND BATH!

Pretty Girl Flying Above The Yellow Flowered Fields

Asphalt black gets blacker still
In the total calm, sounds disappear
Wind gives up the sin of motion
Ocean tides know no boundaries
Only the pain of waves slapped back

Over the top, tippy top of mountains
Whispering over times broken spine 
Step lightly.  Feel the darkness there 
Fill in the crevasses of the demised
It is wise to remain in silence

Snow rocked slopes grow into boulders
Once upon a drift they failed to fall
Into sleep, through no fault known
And through no fault of their own 

See gray in a world gone immobile, inert                 
Wonder through the buried concrete slabs
Find another tunnel less dug by minors  
The age of consent is over and done
Asphalt black is getting blacker every day
In the total calm there is only silence

Home From School

Home from School

 A little stream by the village bridge.
Clear cold water over jagged stones
 searched for pieces of china in the mud
as we meandered slowly home.

 Once-treasured patterns and bits of bones and
 a black eel,rolling wave,burrowing far.
  We sucked sweet nectar from fuchsia flowers 
 on our way home from school 

  Sometimes on lazy summer days, 
 When the workmen were on the road,
We pressed our toes in black tar bubbles, 
And an asphalt oily smell, followed us home
 
A robin's nest was a sacred find
purple foxglove,waving our fairy hands
a homemade doll,yellow plaited straw
treasures home from school 

 Off for milk to Twomey's farm, 
huge cow-beasts, dirty, with leather-silk skin
 in September our berry purple mouths
a juicy feast all the way home

Asphalt Jungle

Concrete 
Fire escapes 
Graffiti city wide
Apartment  fire engines race
Jungle

Laborer's Ode I - Asphalt Pavers

Boy gets up at six
Needs no alarm of complaint
To shake
The brief night of sleep
From his hay-cropped hair

Brushes his teeth
Smokes a two dollar holler of cigarette for breakfast

A pack a day is like tax day for him
Paid by ten in the morning
Then the day is free and clear

Holds down his car as it bucks to life
Lurches away

Stops at Starbucks
Spends another hour’s dough
On two large black coffees

Picks up three buddies at the far edge
Of the Walmart parking lot

Drives two hours to arrive
At a dismal road to tame with asphalt

The boys dissolve and stick to the road

Buns of thick shoulders
Rise and fall in the oven of sun
Shoveling boils of oil and coal

Throwing
Their boots to stomp the steam

His car limps back to his driveway corral
At 9:45 in the summer evening

Devours another hour
Of Coors and McDonalds at his kitchen table

Prays very hard to God
Maybe it could rain tomorrow?

His girlfriend stands behind him
Rests her head on his shoulder

A dim light buzzing from the ceiling.

Blest Flower In Asphalt

Erratic flower
        in steaming asphalt sprouted
            blest dandelion

Asphalt Jungle Megacity

Grid city
closed in streets
congested.
every man
it's a subject
in the maze
symbiotic...
the city attacks
with volcanoes
steelmakers
industrial plant...
without trees,
the city if
plant in
posts,
steel beams...
no harvest,
fertilizes
in concrete
fertilizer
bizarre...
The city
smokes,
the city
screams...
But she
causes shock!
Magic City...
the whistle
from factory
it's flute
candy!
and everyone dances...
the horns
are orchestras
spontaneous
where all
touch... and mine
throat a lump
seeing the crowd so alone...!

Rain On Asphalt

Our city is three restaurants, a roller rink, and a rundown dorm. We fly over red brick roads on truck beds and the squeaky wheels of shopping carts. Don't ask where we got them. Nothing good ever happen in this town, so we happen for ourselves, screaming at the moon and each other and running through the lakes that form when it rains. And our city knows how to rain. She is dying and old but we are dying and young. Well-matched, we are seventeen and waiting on an epiphany. Here is as good a place for one as any. We sit under the cover and wait for the storm.

Asphalt Nomads

Asphalt Nomads
By David J Walker

The nomads of the asphalt travel
In the dying light of the day as
solitary nova’s with
Walmart shopping carts
Knowing where to find discarded
Treasures 
Asphalt nomads
have no numbers they answer 
To many names they laugh at 
Your concerns for their welfare
The asphalt Nomads
marvel at the speed and ease
Of a stolen bicycle and
The meal at the Methodist Church
Is gourmet 
The asphalt nomad 
Knows forever is today
And each today will last a
Lifetime of forever’s
Without birthday cards from you
The asphalt nomads
Freely roam the streets
In the early mornings
Before you are ready to 
Begin your day

Asphalt Angels

asphalt angels dance
august ghosts haunt the future
dogs await their days


John G. Lawless
6/2020

Rain On Hot Asphalt

rain
gently
hop landing
on hot asphalt
sizzling in a melodic rhythm

Blazing Hot Summer Asphalt Wallows---

blazing hot summer
a black, bad asphalt wallows
melts into dry grass

bugs get stuck dry-up
frozen in heated black spot
burnt alive dead stuck

what is it left but...
chard, burnt amber drops dots
blaze burn up insects

melts into dry grass
a black, bad asphalt wallows
hot summer blazing

8/25/19
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. ©2019

Asphalt Hot Summer

Scoops of gold powder flapping sunny flame 
melts into scalding months of humid June. 
Shade of ablaze sky, fiery clouds won't tame   
soaking sunshine an untrimmed afternoon.

Makeup tinged complexion in denim dress 
berries and melons succulent sorbet.
A swim in pool with pineapple drink fresh 
hot or cool, doesn't matter anyway.                                                   

Wages in lease, forever temperate
eternal possession of bad luck dregs.  
Sweltering skin in heat of blood and sweat
toil endless labour, aching hands and legs.                 
  
Some buds wither in tar of asphalt gloom 
Some color heaven in air conditioned room. 




9th August 2019


Sponsor	Michelle Faulkner
Contest Name	A Summer's Day Redo

Asphalt Athletics

We played sports
on asphalt fields
drains and sewer lids
for bases
Billy’s house the right field line
Tommy’s porch
a short left field.

We diagramed
football plays
bottle caps, fractured marbles,
Mikey’s favorite button.
The ball was scuffed
bladder worn
sticking out where it was torn.

The jump rope slapped
sidewalk cracks
sneakers tapped the beat
“Double Dutch” amazingly
twin passing ropes
a double feat.

Baseball cards trilled old bike spokes
roller skates click-clacking by
racing as street lights curfew
silenced the hum of play
returned the quiet of the night
to those who’d worked all day.



John G. Lawless
©2/10/2019

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