Best Freeways Poems
Although the light long ago faded from my youth
Clarity of my memories tell one; go home,
If only to find the innocence and the truth
From whence I travelled this world, like a gypsy roam.
When the scroll misconstrued paths collide in the night
Unprepared for the dawning the golden sunrise,
Horizon awakened one of emerald bright
Freeways of poetry and words woven without guise.
The misunderstanding of the unrolling scroll
Gave one measure to digest the loss; the delay,
In sands of time ribald an everlasting toll
The scroll we have a new understanding this day.
The gypsy has finally found himself a home
Through emerald eyes seeing his sunrise; not alone.
© Harry J Horsman & Mandy M Tams 2014
There's a place I sometimes visit in my mind,
where skies steal the soft color of robins' eggs.
Breezes brush through golden sea oats and I find
soft, white sand dunes where I sit and cross my legs
to count multi-hued shells high tide left behind
and listen, as for food, a circling gull begs.
To the sounds of tumbling waves, I meditate,
assured this sense of peace I can recreate.
Finding solutions mandates vigilant thought
beyond noisy freeways and our cluttered lives.
In webs of our own complications we're fraught.
So when a moment of frustration arrives
and snared in the web of life's hassles you're caught,
transport to shores where serenity revives.
Close your eyes, imagination takes you there;
just visit your private place from anywhere.
February 4, 2019
Symbiosis
Sitting on that rock
Like a suburban mermaid,
You look like a lost girl
With a long sad story to tell.
So honey, why don’t we
Mosey on over to Wide-track Town,
Where the freeways meet in purgatory;
There are singing hipsters there,
Dressed in the regalia of the deranged,
Sniffing salt through straws,
There are ten thousand latex surfers
Returning from the dead,
Returning from their brief sojourn
In the distant backwaters,
The yellowish green sulfur waters,
That seep into your bare flesh,
And send mad biting impulses
Straight into your seething soul.
Ah, yes! So, how long have you had that…
Pardon me honey, but,
Is that a bruise on your neck?
Or maybe it is the love-bite I recently
Gave you, as we rode in the back seat
Of a lavender blue 72’ Land Yacht,
Spread out fine under a blanket,
As Broten, up front, steered us down the long highway,
Through a lit-up suburbia,
Like a chrome dragon spitting smoke from its butt.
Kissing you, honey, is a meal unto itself.
Like eating electric spit
With a dash of salt!
Now is the time,
Now is the moment to touch you.
If you don’t want me to,
I won’t…
Sitting on that rock,
Just like a seducing mermaid.
So, honey, what exactly is your story?
Why don’t we mosey on over to Wide-track Town?
We can talk incessantly until the stars appear,
We can watch the latex surfers find nirvana,
And I can give your daring thigh,
My thirty-minute love bite.
The freeways are packed,
Long faces, fatigue, stress
Where are you going?
Like rats in a maze,
Guzzling gas, polluting air
What is so important?
Cell phones and laptops,
Purity of quiet lost
Mankind advances?
Interconnectedness
Life with all its twisted
Train wrecks
Contorted metal
grappled around
steel, disfigurement.
And at the heart
of it all, I want to crash
with you. Be a witness
to your incriminating truth
Twisted in ways
censorship can't explain
Remove stop signs at intersections
and T Bone with you,
Bleep certain words
as I drive right through
Swerve on curves
Creep through school crossings
and race towards
Photogenic finishes
Connectedness
like snowfall on Georgia freeways
cautiously making incredible
feats of disbelief
writing under the influence
of you, hard to avoid
your touch even following
the six second rule.
I want to rub paint with you
have fender benders
and crash our bodies in ways
our spirits become unrecognizable
as to who belongs to who...
Remember how intersection negotiations
and lane integrity created anxiety
when you first learned to drive?
Collide
My Most Embarrassing Moment?
Twice I’ve entered freeways
On the ramps meant just for exits.
Lordy! How embarrassing is that?
Except nobody knew me
And with little difficulty
I remedied those situations fast!
Twice or thrice I walked into
Restrooms meant for men.
But no one saw me, or, once again,
Nobody knew me.
I got off lucky.
But there was one time
I did it at a pool.
Without my contacts in,
I might as well have just been blind.
I think the guy I walked in on was naked then.
But he did not know me (Saved again!)
Another time, at age fourteen,
I hopped around the yard, a silly teen
Sitting on a big fat ball -
Called Hippity Hop. I took a fall
In front of my new boyfriend.
I split my pants; he didn’t even tell me,
But once I learned what I had done,
That ended our romance!
I ‘m sure I pulled more stunts than that
Through all my years of school.
But being such an airhead
I simply have to say,
My most embarrassing moment -
Whatever it may be -
I don’t recall it anyway!
Im half awake, and glaring at the sunrise
distant brilliance slowly eating at my dry eyes
squinted to best witness the aureate Apollo
refract off blades soaked through with dew
heaven's first blush, midsummer quiet, and coffee scent
cast clarity, light unveiling the burden
weighing down on every living being
clearest with the coming of the day
burning black holes into my brain's blank slate
sundering my soul 'till shatter state
fast approaches on the infinity of empty space
veiled out ahead of me
Restless with the lethargy of baring witness
I stir the pit, and catch flames leap up
from within carbon prints of gray matter
quelled embers lay suffocating beneath
ash dunes and smoldering phoenix feathers
matted and clumped by filmy deliquescence
spent of all but their will to rise again.
I grasp at the green broken glass
strewn about my feet like seeds
planted by last night's ignorance
and the sin of forced forgetting that
we all someday pay recompense
for our vice's and the gluttonous
way we all practice immoderation.
The world is quiet in lull
humanity lost to an illusion
breathing soft
and sleeping soundly
altogether
We exist
to want and rub against
the way the world turns on
a crooked axis, each moment less lucid
than those sunspots and dewdrops
coursing through dirt-clay veins and
branding the cracked dirt with morning
I cant shake loose the afterimage
imprinted on my blunted senses
experiencing everything I reach
is less than whole
understanding the universe
exists as fragments blackened in spite
of time's one plight forever pulling it apart
The sunset split the sky,
the fire danced and spit,
and the condensation clotted.
I seized eternity that morning
amidst the doldrums of sleeping masses
its truth intimate and calming.
I sense slumber cease and the suburbs rustle
the dreamers stumble about in waking
to shower away their sweat and dreamt delusion
start their cars, and drive away in sync
I listen closely to their heavy sighs
the shift of sagging shoulder plates,
bent under with Atlas tugging at the reins
kind's struggle never ceases to
echo off of terra firma, quaking
with each clanking of the chains
that bind our beating hearts to
alarm clocks, freeways, work weeks
and the torment of monotony
The forest floor stretches drum tight, bound by verdant slopes, a timpani of sound.
First greeters of rain’s onslaught, leaves trill joy, form larger drops, a deeper sound
While tires rumble freeways flowing through suburban sprawl like spring flashflood
That envelopes older, gravely rich, established enclave’s tombstones. Gurgles sound
That rival reverberations of a symphony hall, canyon walls full of a halcyon praise.
Nature mutes personal pain, music of motion scoring modern hallelujahs in sound,
Though rainbows, ocean tides, and tidal frictions in lunar crust, also have a voice.
These vibrations only felt by enraptured souls, that are so unlike an infant’s sound,
Season earth with salty song. As mans’ voice rises into space, a lullaby harmonizes,
To any God with ears to hear, a strong echo, “It is good!” our praise colored sound!
Brian Johnston
April 25, 2015
Poet’s Notes:
A Ghazal is a poem of 5-8 couplets with one repeating word (at the end of each stanza) and a hidden reference to my name in the last stanza. This poem has two Easter Eggs as I call them, inside of it, my name and a bit of personal information. Can you find it?
PS: You may not believe me but I swear that there are real sounds associated with both rainbows and tides in case you wondered. They are just beyond our human hearing range in frequency and also very weak.
It can be a little bit tough,
While skating in the buff,
In the fast lane of the freeway,
You know I need not say,
Especially to me,
When you need your skate key,
So I'd suggest you try first,
To use the service road,
or call a hearse,
A helmet may be wise,
Unless they hit you in your eyes
And please note the word freeways,
Is for the benefit of our left-coasters
Cause that word in N.Y. would daze
There ain't nothin' free in N.Y.,
Just ask any right coast dork.
It was on a Sunday morning in the village where I stay
Out walking with my dog, I heard some pensioners say
Did you hear about the earthquake, it was somewhere in our State
No magnitude has ever been like it, it's impossible to relate
Quickly I headed home, to view this terrible news
Upon turning on the TV, I'm in horror at what my eyes now view
The awesome Golden Gate Bridge, against an azure bluey day
Lies broken, distorted and twisted, as if it's foundations had given way
The camera now focuses on the mainland, capturing plumes of choking black
Freeways lie twisted and contorted, trains running from their tracks
Gas lines spew throwers of flames, sirens resonate in blaring sound
What was level hours before, have dropped from it's original grounds
Many reporters are now on the scene, as they pan out across the blue
From the helicopter of CNN, Alcatraz disappears from their view
Slowly the island it sat on, as if by magic, now it has gone
Words are heard through the speakers, what the hells gone wrong
The daylight turns to black, a city lies in shreds
Memories of 1906, when three thousand plus were dead
All through the night, tremors came and went
Has history repeated itself, the San Andreas Serpent
I am awoken in the morning, having left the TV on
Panic stricken reporters screaming, most of San Francisco's gone
Where once stood a city, lie pillars of battered ruins
Deep gorges surround them, in bloodied scattered strewn
There's a break in the programme, it's from Yellowstone National Park
The land is starting to rise, incredible is the remark
Geysers that once flowed often, have receded in their shower
Are we about to witness, another of her powers
Back to the CNN studios, more footage of the morning
Towering inferno's in sickened tears, the clock, the warning
I fall to my knees in remembrance of the date
It's December the 21st, has earth met it's fate
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/fantasy-17.php
The whir
and the echo
lasting flow of autos
a luring, lulling safety
that’s false.
Keats’ Nightingale
The romantic poets were too early to postulate total atheism,
And so freshened up the church by aligning god with nature,
And I believe they had a preference for nature over god or theism,
Because they never posit him as social with high, tall stature.
Keats says that the nightingale exemplifies nature as active,
As bestowing upon all human beings meaning, sense and worth,
Since the bird’s song objectifies how nature truly is effective,
Fulfilled by happiness, and aimed at contentment and rebirth.
Nature triggers in us thoughts and words to settle and allure,
Offers us our language to dispel pain and find the cure,
And Keats contends that poetry, the credibility of its form,
Epitomises what nature proffers, a receptacle rather warm.
When you feel awkwardly suicidal with nowhere else to turn,
Nature lullabies you into your own sense, one you can rip and burn;
No controlled access freeways, no road signs for your safety,
Only soft, quiet communication that's never guilty of brevity.
Just as nature is beautiful, so Keats claims people as beautiful too,
As he uses the word beauty right in the middle of his nature exposé;
He referred to flora, the moon, the stars, the forest and what seems true,
Tnat song of the nightingale that's for anyone, as this bird is not choosey.
He suggests that light or positivity in nature means movement,
That the soft breeze dispels the gloom and mossy pavement;
Quantum physics does reduce matter back down to interactive particles,
In which kinetic energy can be mistaken for minuscule, motionless articles.
His mentor is the nightingale as part of nature’s whole,
No minister or clergyman to advise him on his soul,
Stillness and bird song scent his poisoned air surrounding,
And it is all but for the silence of that beauteous music, astounding.
Nature does not irritate him when he surmises and introspects,
But upholds itself in majestic grandeur with unquestionable prospects;
It speaks about life, your life, your daily happenings and exotic dreams,
And forever exists for us when sense is just not within our means.
SCROLL OF LIFE
Although the light long ago faded from my youth
Clarity of my memories tell one; go home,
If only to find the innocence and the truth
From whence I travelled this world, like a gypsy roam.
When the scroll misconstrued paths collide in the night
Unprepared for the dawning the golden sunrise,
Horizon awakened one of emerald bright
Freeways of poetry and words woven without guise.
The misunderstanding of the unrolling scroll
Gave one measure to digest the loss; the delay,
In sands of time ribald an everlasting toll
The scroll we have a new understanding this day.
The gypsy has finally found himself a home
Through emerald eyes seeing his sunrise; not alone.
© Harry J Horsman & Mandy M Tams 2014
Late night,
coming home from work,
making the turn onto the rural highway,
shortcut between freeways,
down shifting, making the turn,
realizing that there are no tail lights ahead,
upshifting, anxious anticipation,
no head lights behind, those conscience joggers,
that make one keep his vows,
and so the foot goes down,
fifty, sixty, eighty, one hundred and beyond,
car and body one, rushing through the rural dark,
high beams on, willing that no small animal or deer
make their journey cross yours,
Jerry Rice eyes open to the road ahead,
and on the road behind in the mirror,
placid anticipation,
ready for the heat,
taking curves flawlessly,
suspended in time and space,
aging ended, serene,
timeless,
at peace,
and then the street lights appear,
community,
the road to home,
the vow,
never ever,
to do that again!
Maybe.
Faces void all passing by
open eyed yet emptied
like flashes of a vacancy sign
blank stares like orphans pitied
Caught in time
no plans to sketch
just colored pencils
with broken tips
Only the artist's see
painting joy on canvas
as if an apology
for selling a feeling - to what the living should be free
This city speaks of sunsets passed
and lakes that serve as portraits hung
rush for a weekdays check to cash
while natures gift remains outrun
For me I'd rather fish the sea
a humbled walk along the beach
fall upon a stack of leaves
but freeways and buildings my peace has breached
In love with a life of simple pleasures
unhurried by the next place to go
where hospitality is still the measure
not a life that's put on like a show
Where did all the soft eyes go
the patriots passion the pride
when did this world spin out of control
and kindness become something to hide?
To each his own the saying goes
but what of love thy neighbor?
When abnegation is no longer chose
it's no wonder isolation be favored