Best Backseats Poems
REVOLUTION BABY
Am from the backseats of mean streets
I got my eye aiming the Wall Street
They said education is the key
I wonder why they made it expensive for we,
Am sitting around hood rats,
Gangsters and Ex- prisoners
Sniffing, snatching, stuffing stuff
Mama expects a lawyer, a doctor, a mayor,
Newsflash!
We are in the middle of a crisis
Am the original copy of a son-of-a-gun
I define the odds
I believe to break a law,
Is to make a road
You go east or west,
Home is still the best
But with a bullet in your chest
Don’t mess with these streets
They will give you a free ride to hell
Pot and crack do rounds all over,
It’s a mess,
I am needed, you are needed,
We are needy
Damn!
We are in a man eat man generation
You either survive or succumb
There’s a billion ways to die,
Choose one,
It’s time for a change,
Change of perspectives,
Change of attitude,
Change of behavior
Let’s get out of our comfort zone,
Coz that’s what’s drowning us,
We need a change
Change for the better
It’s revolution time!!
Gulls circled above, spiralling through car exhaust
Kids fidgeted in the backseats of chaos
Eerie silence, interrupted by overheated transmissions
Someone blasting The Doors...theme music
Stern, heavily armored Homeland Security soldiers
Slowly approached, assuming insurrection
Just another day in the new Amerika
Land of the free, home of the brave
Large signs proclaim:
"All contents must be declared, please exit your
Vehicle when stopped"
Off to the side, transport busses waited
Like praying mantis seizing their victims
Filling quickly,
abandoned cars quickly towed
Destination unknown
Destination
Unknown
04/12/13
© All Rights Reserved
milestones are marked by photographs
by notches on door casings that show just how grown up we are getting
by midnights spent on front porch stoops with people we only half know drinking mixtures that taste as awful as they should but let the words and movements come fast and steady knowing that it's the only time loose lips are the only things sinking ships
We were children growing up in the backseats of parents who rarely spoke to each other
the children who blossomed into the worst love poems we only pretended to read
As children we played games in the backseat
I spy
middle seat smash
guess which song
then, sometime during the middle of awkward slow dances with fresh braces and clothes our parents picked out we stopped getting up early in the morning
we stopped counting down the days until christmas
we started playing games in the backseat
feet tucked or feet spread
windows down or windows steamed
i've never,
that time changed from clueless to reckless to clothesless lasts only the length of a song
the radio cuts out in some spots around French Hill but still plays Freshman by The Verve Pipe
as we close our eyes
mouths open
breath fluttering like heartbeats
we were no longer children
not yet adults but we knew every line to every song we liked and we knew the most honest places we had and what happened when we held our breathe for too long during the bass line
We tender that special moment that was well earned, spent in our fabled youth's labyrinth passages beholden to young hearts locked in eternal time for e'er so oft consequent the key of memories call. It beckons me now in subsequent years of a pensive soul tryst with thyself. Loneliness fades grasped by natures blooming redolences proffering counsel to evaporate my soul resplendent aspiration to utterance, awakening welcomed birds to flight and favor a dusky crown bejeweled with distant stars flickering arousal as a moon in its laborious mood o'er guiding men to sort out words of worn-out paper neatly tucked away neath backseats of a row vehicles parked on a hillside crowded lane. A cooled engine warms my car as I leave behind a season of mist and mellow fruitfulness.
2020 January 28
“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” By John Keats
In cities of affluent urbanity,
why are kids so rare in the vicinity?
In backseats of their glitzy cars,
no tots there licking choco bars.
Instead they have beribboned cats
or manicured dogs wearing hats
going to sauna-spas for pets,
some to clinics of doting vets,
others to lawyers for insurance
or pet's fabulous inheritance.
You may call me an old-fashioned hillbilly,
but without kids, you just don't have family !
Machines With Madmen Groaning
Machines with madmen groaning above me at 10 thousand feet,
Grumbling and growling like maniac sky monsters slurping on bloody prey,
Those steel dragons of yore spewing fire and corpses into the excesses,
Like Rodan and Godzilla maiming each other in the frozen spasming countrysides,
Giant crazed beasts reciprocating the deafening overtures of contrived violences,
Contrived annihilations, a few math equations, and we have the Beast rising from the sea.
Here, pour me a glass of your backwashed spittle as it internalizes with basically nothing.
It’s time to find the time to describe a time when clocks will rage on like crazed moon dancers,
When the girls on the boulevard were cool and accessible in their cruising flirtations.
When tanned nomads inside their cool cars found gliding nirvanas, and a bra strap,
Amidst the midnight milkshakes and the incredible nude conversations in the backseats of time.
Machines with motorized redundancies tap into the central eye where speed finds inertness.
Life can be found below the stage on the Thames, river of history, by the Black Friars on Coffee Street.
Incense-filled rooms lie mysteriously down a long gloomy walkway around the opaque tree line.
Ghosts of codgers and spillmen greet the toothless ladies with bloody knees and rotting finery,.
A young bard shakes the hands of broggers and yeomen with dripping quills and pig’s blood.
Grind on young thespians! Read your antique lines, not forgetting your monologues dedicated to fear.
Grant that the music of the spheres above captures the relative major, with silent egresses to be heard.
I remember your smiling face
Staring down at me
It all just seemed pillows and promises
But soon the comfort fades out
And we’re left with hidden pictures
And misguided hearts
But now, I’ve stared at the memory long enough
That I can feel your hand wrap around mine
And this time, we won’t let go
It’s been so long since seventeen
We’ve gone so far, fearing never to find our way back
School hallways and car backseats linger in my heart
In just a moment, with just another smile you took me back
To seventeen
Now, I’ve stared at the memory long enough
That I can feel your hand wrap around mine
And this time, we won’t let go
Sitting on the edge of the bed
Spiraling toward the edge of my mind
I hear the door close behind you
Still, I sit here, wondering what this means
Somehow I know
Somehow I know, you’ll be back again someday
So I’ll just sit here and let you find your way back to me
I’ve stared at the memory long enough
That I can feel your hand wrap around mine
And this time, we won’t let go
This time, we’ll be walking hand-in-hand
I'm back lads! After a long while of inactiveness. (This is not part of the poem).
I imagine a world filled with wonders,
where dinosaurs roam the streets,
there're flying cars racing high above,
with children cheering in the backseats,
when cloud burst into popcorn treats,
chorused by thunder, lightning, and rain,
then a rainbow danced calmly across the stage,
and the drama starts again.
Welcome my friend, to my world of imagination.
I'm hounded by a strange curiosity
about kids, parents, about humanity
in glitzy, affluent centers of urbanity
where children are rare in the vicinity;
backseats of expensive vans and cars
don't have kids licking chocolate bars,
limo windows show beribboned cats
or huge and tiny dogs all wearing hats
going to saunas and clinics for pets
to see psychiatrists and doting vets,
or hire lawyers on pet's life insurance
and entitlement to fabulous inheritance;
you pamper pets like they're truly human,
you mistake the eggshell for the albumen,
I reckon you won't believe me, a hillbilly,
but without kids you just don't have family !
We traverse those extraordinary significances that transpired
well earned, spent in our fabled youth's labyrinth corridors
obliged naive hearts bolted in present infinity for so oft
succeeding the key of memories becall. It beckons
in subsequent years of a pensive soul tryst with
thyself. Loneliness fades grasped by natures
opening redolences proffering counsel to
evaporate my soul resplendent aspiration to utterance, awakening
greeted birds to flight and favor a dusky crown bejeweled by
distant stars flickering arousal as a moon in its assiduous
mood o'er guiding men to sort out words of worn-out
theme deftly tucked away neath backseats of row
vehicles parked on an acclivity crowded lane.
Steered twilight's, vigilant years wane,
within the effervescent youth from
dawns intrepid golden sleigh.
2020 February 02
He came out fighting
He always comes out fighting
Like a caged animal who has not lost his oomph yet
Today was no different
His parents were called
They have blocked the school’s phone number
They do not want to know
We are a bother to them
He is six
He always comes out fighting
We wonder about them
But they never come
Parents who do not come to school even to pick him up.
They send different people each day
People arrive in pickup trucks and jeeps.
Most do not greet him
The only reason we know they have permission
to pick him up, is the mother calls in.
She does not answer, but she does call.
Our sad little fighter slides into backseats daily.
No one turns
No one greets him
He comes out fighting daily
Wonder why?
About family, about humanity,
y'see, I'm hounded by
a strange curiousity
in affluent centers of urbanity
where children are rare
in the vicinity.
Cozy backseats of expensive vans and cars
don't have kids licking melting
chocolate bars;
But instead I see brightly beribboned cats
or all sorts of pampered dogs,
some wearing hats.
They go to saunas and clinics for pets
to see animal psychiatrists
and vets
or hire lawyers for a pet's life insurance
and its entitlement
to inheritance.
If we spoil our pets like they're really human,
society might lose that which
it can lean on;
I reckon you won't believe this hillbilly,
but without kids, we don't have
a family!
INsaneity POEM
INsaneity POEM
Normal activity in the millennium has replaced abnormal activity in THE DAY
Back in THE DAY thay say it was not that way at all
A man walks in a circle talking to himself and moves around slowly to find the
best advantage spot and although he is dancing all by himself there is actually
someone on the other end of his cell phone
People hold communion with a web site and spend HOURS looking for a link to
what they deem a most neccasary thing but alas and alak
It is all just pixles and even LUST is hard to nurture and to keep in the Ethernet of
404 and 401 and on the web the images of love the *********** of past
becomes the addiction of the many lost forever in their past.
When people drivewith the head up in their last place that they look and the
people are just robots with a cell phone in their hand and in the
corners of their places in the seats and in the backseats there is lust of a
different sort no more sex but just the jaded memory of 404 and 401.
There once was a dude named Santa Claus
He did not know how to slow and pause
He raced with his sleigh
Spilling presents astray
Into the waiting backseats of cars
Monday, December 13, 2021
I Need a Good Laugh: XMAS LIMERICK CONTEST Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Andrea Dietrich
Between the black gutters and the painted ceilings,
Dogs teach dolls how to die.
Study the rot in my bicuspids, file down the calluses and watch the heartbeat
Shake the skin like strychnine shivers.
Whispers fill the space between the curtains, hanging from the scaffolds
Hushed against the legs, porcelain and fractured,
Broken down the middle.
Kintsugi can’t restore the signs of the break, and red mouths
Can’t look anything other than bitten once they have been.
Sing for me, redlight lover,
Sing the words that the angels won’t touch, and watch: hymns gather in our corners.
Conversations with the ceiling are painted mock-ups
Of what lives and crawls in blindspot gutters blackened.
The highways surrounding the heart, rushing with red ruin
Sanguine and torpid with low breaths between backseats and
Cocaine gloveboxes—
Will it steady your nerves to partake?
Move for me, bunny, and leech my loneliness; can’t you see it’s flooding out my neck?
Draw the door and punch the lights,
Bruise the knuckles on the deed and sigh,
Baying over the carcass, oh hound with its kill,
Trot between the cradle and the grave with canines dripping hunger’s ache.
Here’s where we go to die, doll, the both of us;
I will bite you open, and they will put me down, sheets to palls, buried side by side.
Wrench the cork from the bottle like the head from its neck and drink;
Raise a glass to the dolls,
To the dogs and to the dashboard lines,
To the desperation of black gutters and painted ceilings,
And to the highway blood that never finds its way home.
When the glass breaks, they’re going to teach us all how to die.