Axles Poems | Examples

Toward the Faraway

I travel incognito, using a name I once found
in a book of minor sorrows.
I have a longing for the sea, yet languish here
behind the wheel of a rental,
crisscrossing arid lands with many miles ahead.
A white plastic bag flaps on a thorn bush
it could act as a windsock but turns listlessly
in the breathless air.
A GPS guides my mind over a flickering map
toward an ocean that is too far away to reach today,
a place where silver fish leap in the aqueous air,
only to pause as still as stone in an ice-marbled sky.
That shore for now, is bereft of place and time
it can only be imagined through gaps in
rising walls of dust.
The hatchback seems to trundle slowly over
dinosaur bones, dry axles groan under
tired springs.
A hundred miles ahead a fish-restaurant
is getting ready to close its doors for the night.
A Motel 8’s neon lights flicker in a sea spray.
On an unseen shore, snow crab dance and sing
like sirens in the rolling surf.

Speed Limits

They pose with the austere stares of
Loving, friendly ghosts —tall, gaunt and lissome,
With big, rounded head.
Draped in weathered robes of care,
They are the only guardian spirits we see.
They have the calming power,
Where drunken machines run amok
Through broiling engine oils
And reckless crankshafts,
Spitting gas, and brittle axles.
Roads are unpredictable.
In winter they storm with the quiet rage of
Sods, dragging queens and whims . . .
Guide me, O limits of spirits!
Check my fattened excesses for fibrosis.
Darkness thickens —even by feast-time of the sun.

our six-percent-age

our best chance...
be six percent
to get our
wants

in some fashion...
from reality's
face of odds
all round

our 4d time sphere...
bubbling there-in
so dimensions
be shared

as axles or axis to turn on...
as others do and see
what be as common
real-'all-at-tea'


stans sand

The Axle

Wheels turn upon the axles
Children depend upon their parents
Pupils receive education from the school
God says 
Whoever is lost in this world
May surrender himself to God

Westward

Wagons packed, gunny sacked

                                  Wheat flour, beans, preserves

                        Wild nature sojourning

                              Worn axles, oxen, health

             Winter weather challenge

                       Wealth aspiring visions

     Wonder-filled golden hills


5-10-2021
Plieades W Contest
Sponsor: Kim Merryman

Driving Through a Rolling Dawn

Long after first light
night yet clings to the slick highway.

Lungs steer the wheel;
breathe out and the wave-riding shocks
follows their beamed lights, 
the road adjusts to unseen rapids,
curves around blacked-out river bends.
Breathe in, and eyes shutter out,
yet what was seen sails on.

I am scaffolding for water,
knowing this I have faith in
in the flow, the roads ability 
to avoid Niagara or deluged rest stops,
the low flying raids of sky-drenched winds.

Mind rides its rafts, skims undercurrents
weaves in and out of dreaming sailors,
the drunk rocking of back axles
as they negotiate one Rubicon 
after another.

Night parts its dim waves,
runs downhill into landscapes,
structures rebuilt only moments ago.

It might be raining, or it might be
spume and spindrift, 
intermittent splashes of shorelines 
just beyond the off-ramps.

Boar Boar Shed

Struggling to stay on top
He looked to the. Future
Evaluating his gains
and slighted through
Several possiblitys
Which might makest
All who labor in this
Types of endeavors
Chore less
Reduce the risks
Eliminate  challenges
And profit
 He designed a
Fencing system
That was sturdy enough 
To fennce in his hogs while they grazed
And a mobile barn with six axles
That housed the. Animals
At night and during weather
Events.tge floor was heated in winter
With a wood furnace and ventilated
With water that was pressurized
It could be moved by truck or ttacter
The PTO of the tracter to be used
To  power the watering system  
To keep the animals were the cameras
Could watch the hogs
The PTO used. To
And used to extend or retract
The fencing on both ends
 bared wire was used in the middle
Or the solar panels powers
The equipment in the tower
Where the hand could reside his watch
Over the grazing hogs

A Midsummer Dream

On a warm summer day
	while I was eating my lunch
my head did nod
	and I began to dream

chocolate donuts for wheels
	yellow carrots the axles were
the bed made of celery sticks
	a bright red apple did drive

and in the back
	little grape children rode
with bright little smiles
	they did wave to me

the road they drove down
	of graham crackers was made
and alongside did flow
	a river of milk I could see

I wanted to go
	and ride on with them
but I did wake
	from a summer dream

A Place Just Right - Reprise

The Greyhound reels over creaking axles.
Northern Kentucky puts on weight in summer,
a green mélange thickens,
yet inside our trundling tube, 
joints rattle,
gears burn through paunch and muscle.

We lurch over a crest down into a holler
An old Shaker Hymn booms across the radio:
When we find ourselves in a place just right
'Twill be in the valley of love and light.

I have often longed to be 'in a place just right,'
to be at ease in these bucking bones,
even when breathing this smother 
of body odor and diesel.

Then we dip down into a valley.
At a wooden store advertising cold beers
we stop. 
"Is this the right place?" I ask.
"It’s as close as we get", says the driver.


~~~~~

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

A Place Just Right

The Greyhound reels over creaking axles.
Northern Kentucky puts on weight in summer,
a green mélange thickens,
yet inside our trundling tube, 
joints rattle,
gears burn through paunch and muscle.

We lurch over a crest down into a holler
An old Shaker Hymn booms across the radio:
When we find ourselves in a place just right
'Twill be in the valley of love and light.

I have often longed to be 'in a place just right,'
to be at ease in these bucking bones,
even when breathing this smother 
of body odor and diesel.

Then we dip down into a valley.
At a wooden store advertising cold beers
we stop. 
"Is this the right place?" I ask.
"It’s as close as we get", says the driver.

Finger Cramp

we heard the wagonwheels
the rattling of the axles
the stinge of the horses
the dust they created
we were unmoved
some became frightened
but most of us knew
what they varmints wanted
we stood back to back to make
 sure they weren't getting it
they wanted our gold
and we weren't gonna let them have it!






From the novel Big Tramps Watering Hole
published by Dahiser Hussier
and the Bandchoosen Franchise
New York greetings publishing company
copyrighted 1901.

Hanky-Panky Janky

I was pretty cranky when my spanky new bike was janky.
The frame was too short for my body, too tall and lanky.
The tires too fat, too hard to push up boggy maintain trails.
The deal I got clearly a lemon janky, all wrapped in hanky-panky.

The bike looked so nice out of the box, its chrome frame so glint and shiny.
The first sign of trouble was rust on the chain, which made me angry.
Squirts of oil needed on chain and axles, to make pedaling smooth.
Front and rear nuts needed tightening, else wheel retention was dicey.

I set off for ride, bike all fixed up and ship-shaped I hoped,
but the brakes did not work when handle grips I groped,
Disaster averted, just in nick of time, by dragging my feet on ground.
The handle bars were loose, the seat too nippy on bum, but some how I coped.

Back home from first ride, mad as hell, I swore I would return the heap of junk,
I found the guarantee and read the fine print, but my hopes were sunk
when I read that the bike could only be returned to get full refund,if never ridden!
So I’m stuck with my Jekyll janky skunk of a bike, deal a flunk, ego shrunk.

The Double Wide

The eucalyptus sting that burns my nose
And eyes is not enough to mask the tide,
Of eloquent free speech and purple prose,
Delivered from armchairs set side by side.
Although they are so far, they sound so close,
For sounds like ghosts traverse double wide.

From sounds within and noise without my room,
I toss and turn and find I cannot hide,
And from below the stench of death’s perfume,
From some wild thing (or tame) that lately died,
With pier and beam and axles for a tomb,
The lucky beast escaped the double wide!

Michael F Lewis
04/01/09

One Too Many

The engine revs faster,
The transmission grinds as i shift, 
I turn the music up to forget why im 
here, 
Moonlight flooded the ground making 
everything crystal clear,
I saw every detail of every object as 
it flew past my window, 
Yet, i couldnt see anything through 
the stone wall in my mind,
The car starts to shake as my speed 
increases,
The axles groan with every small 
bump,
Its finally time to let off the gas,
Spinning the wheel, i could see my 
whole past,
Every mistake, and regret and all the 
heartbreak, 
Without feeling a thing the whole trip 
was over, 
Not a drop touched my lips,
But i was never once sober

Part Two

Kansas City nightfall
in a rose-petal garden
Take the Easton & George
to the end of the line
He's been put down to slaughter
turned ash till he rose
To take vengeance on the spirit
The darkness that glows

Free dreams may assault you
so cover up your soul
When he finds you in the garden
the future is recalled
Return to Goliath
put your sling upon your arm
Show the glory of the moment
The turns of right and wrong

Cleopatra's in the river
sunlight for the flames
Rain down upon the heavens
the beat beneath the page
Ticonderoga battles dewfall
the blast that forged the seed
That fertilizes feeling
The riches and the reeds

It's a Manmade
evolution revolution
Axles, fractals, tin-can constitution
raining beds of clovers
On a Kansas City wall

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