Best Speed Poems
Must you mileage chalk up in free verse speed way
For Kim Patrice Nunez*, with hope
Must you mileage chalk up in free verse speed way
Let your wheels skid by letting loose grip on wheel
Free verse range’s for marksmen trained on rondolet*
Dipodic foot pantun villanelle dactyl
Cut their teeth on the slippery run-on-line
Roll their anaepest tongue round limerick rhyme
Do not a ballad begin with aubade fine
Nor drive straight past end-stopped line’s feminine rhyme
Such as painters’ coprophilia canvasses
Hide chance ironic hidden ghostly faces
Cubist abstract surrealist morasses
Whose apprenticeships lead to trumping aces
Far too many poets love the sound of words
Yet shirk bardic tasks speeding on twisted roads
* Nunez: Sorry, no tilde over the “n” on my Mac.
• rondolet: French pronunciation rhymes with “way”.
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2015
I sat down and watched
mans great consuming need
He moved quickly towards the nothing
For nothing could satisfy him
those things he had grasped for
became dust within his hands
I wondered within my silence
Who he had been
before he too turned to dust
My choice was not to forget him
for amongst his moments
there were pearls
Those smiles and kisses
he failed to collect
I listened to the music he was unable to hear
Inhaled the fragrance of the beauty he had relinquished
Bathed myself in the light of magnificent sunsets
There in my stationary position
I moved at the speed of life
Within his experiences
I felt the loss of his possibilities
causing a single tear to drip down my face
It grew, forming into a lake
Upon the lake I floated with my thoughts
until I panicked
For I thought I would drown
sink beneath my own questioning
Where would I travel next
now that man had disappeared
A hand reached for me
from above the surface of the water
so I grasped for more
Holding onto my great need
I felt God lift me
until I gazed upon His face
He smiled at me and my brothers
For despite our flaws
We had not been forsaken!
She was on the rebound
high on freedom's speed
our coordinates collided
in a silver speck of time.
we dumped our seeds
upon a neon galaxy
but nothing ever blooms
on that starry autobahn
I was just a speed bump,
to her leather studded charm.
Maybe I want to cry and maybe I want to sigh, and maybe I'm looking for a fight
Feeling I'm invincible, often non-sensible, living at the speed of light
Too much time is wasted brooding over what might have been
Too many days are spent looking at yesterday's sin
I want to stand at the top of a mountain and scream until I can scream no more
I want to hold hands with an angel and walk along a peaceful shore
Hop a freight train in the middle of nowhere and head on down the track
There's too much waiting up ahead to ever start looking back
Live each day from early dawn until the darkness falls at night
Live each day as if there's no tomorrow, living at the speed of light
There are bridges to cross and mountains to climb, another trail to find
Visit places you've never been, leaving the old world behind
Charter a course that's never been sailed. There's a new island in sight
Ride with the wind, reaching for dreams, living at the speed of light
Go where you've never been, where only the valiant can find you
Ride with your heart, never stopping, never looking behind you
Live for the moment, don't stop, no fear of the approaching night
Take it to the limit, going the distance, living at the speed of light.
Next Stop F-stop 2.8
Got to get out of the city,
if you want to see the galaxy.
(Be sure to grab your camera on your way out the door,
cause there’s no turning back).
Must escape man’s brilliance,
man’s electric-mind;
street lamps with flesh-light, blue-light, and corpse-light,
lights that hum,
lights that pop,
lights with no eyes,
lamps that hang their heads above the road,
resigned to line and light the asphalt and gutters.
Man’s light pollutes the night,
hides the way out of the city,
that milky way up and out through the sky.
I’ve got to get out of the city.
Shut up behind night's shutters,
you have to leave
if you want to see, what possibilities are left in creation.
Drive hours in the dark,
just to see how far infinity goes,
dust as big as planets
leaving a star-crumb trail
back to the beginning,
before city lights,
before corpse-light,
before man light,
all the way back to that One light
that lit the world with a bang.
Be sure to set your shutter as wide as your eyes,
ready to make room for starlight,
your camera the only passenger.
Leave the city;
no road;
no map;
next stop f-stop 2.8.
Draft 2 May 15, 2020
Shutter Speed Contest
Sponsor Kai Michael Neumann
I miss the peace of silent thought--
This worldly pace has grown so fast—
And in its wake that speed has brought
Us woes unknown throughout the past,
And now we find we have to face
A sea of troubles, deep and vast.
If we could only slow that pace
And find a means for its decrease,
Perhaps this unrelenting race
Might finally be made to cease,
And in that silence we might find
Some vestige of elusive peace.
For there at last may be divined
Creativeness of every kind.
April 30, 2019
and in their cold
condemning eyes ~
I am forever framed
as flawed fragments
bolted to the brutal beginnings,
oblivious to the wings of an end...
yet the intrinsic ink of my soul
knows not the art
of stirring superficial stars
~ fear not my antique antlers
caressed with copper compassion,
I am not their synonym
for emotional emptiness ~
let me breathe away
from counterfeit lies
pretending to be holier
than the highest of halos,
tainting truth with
tomb tongue-twisters
I choose to follow the rain
before the rising
of opalescent light ~
I seek streaks of sleep’s
sweet silver steam
blurring the smoke
above the veiled valley
of murky melancholy ~
traveling through the mists
of memories and magic...
I am tied to the unarmed
acceleration of alchemy,
an ambience of adoration
where poetry is resurrected ~
reconstructed amongst the
rushing resilience of rust...
I am the maternal momentum
of the mystical movers,
an unmistaken metaphor
for what sighs within the
magnetic embers
of locomotive silence,
rapidly ringing the sounds
of the sky-draped sea ~
trace this track of serene tears...
I taste time as
the ultimate revealer
of what beautifully remains ~
deep in the depths
of delightful devotion,
no longer a grey amongst
the steel of stolen secrets…
Its elasticity is in fact a mystery ~
while time is free to flee as quick as lightning
sometimes it drags on for lengths of eternity.
And for all our hankering and longing
that time would move according to our wishes,
it's never anything but a fool's machination.
While youth is just a memory away ~
the magician waves his wand, and
without a trace into thin air, poof!
the decades swiftly vanish.
AP: 1st place 2025
In the childhood home her mother spins her child
Round and round we go happiness seems to overflow
And the childhood goes by; faster, faster
A growing child with so much energy running and having fun
Careless and free he runs across the yard
He is growing up; faster, faster
Only in middle school and already a rebel
Sticking up for a friend and getting in a fight
He has courage but still he runs; faster, faster
High school has come at last
The odd man out he cries for attention
Into depression he spirals; faster, faster
At the high school prom he meets a girl
The hearts beet together and the music beats in their ears
They are falling madly in love; faster, faster
Barely a year and a kid on the way
To work and back the same routine, every hour, every day
A wedding is coming closer; faster, faster
So far a happy life, and a good career
They buy a home and outside he spins his child
Another childhood is going by; faster, faster
His life was long another one has started from it
But now the ambulance move; faster, faster
And his heartbeat fails; slower, slower
As I put the key in the ignition
To win this race is my only ambition
I love to hear the roar and smell the fuel;
All the cars are revving up to join the duel
I’m ready to make the black sport clutch drop
The excitement is in the air and every heart stops
I give more gas to hear the engine roar
Trust me I’m ready to put the metal to the floor
Both of my hands are tightly gripping the steering wheel
That adrenaline rush and my extreme appetite for danger is what I love to feel
Right foot pressed to the accelerator
As my fate lies beside two parallel lines
Helmet on it’s my time to shine
I can’t wait to see you way behind me in the rear view mirror
As I increase my speed maneuvering through each situation
Okay let’s be honest to race my car it's an obsession
The clock is my enemy, but speed is my only friend
I’m always focused on to win, and only to win
Foot on the gas
No time to slow down
Paddling harder
Not wanting to drown
Reaching for oxygen
Atmosphere's thinner
Still in the race
Eat the dust of the winner
Adventure not waining
For some skiing off piste
Soulful confessions?
Time to contact a priest
There's life in the old dog
Though the snow on the roof
Offers no clue
To the internal youth
Life can't be frantic
Should be leisured, not hurried
We're meant to be rested
Not hastened or worried
So whatever the day brings
It's a gift to be treasured
Your age is just numbers
Not how life should be measured
At a spot of roadside, shaded
A predator on the prowl
Concealed itself and waited
for prey to run afoul…
Then, madly, with a dash,
It shot out from the thicket;
Nabbed one prey, in a *flash*
And slapped it with a ticket.
Ride Ride the motorcycle
Speedily down the street
Rrum rrum rrum rrum
Listen to the beat.
I never took the time to speak my love
I never told him what I was thinking of
I never thanked him for all he had done
I never said I was proud to be his son
I was blinded by the speed of life
Now, on angel’s wings he’s taken flight
To have shared his world, I feel delight
I was blinded by the speed of life
I always waited for the perfect time
I always kept those thoughts inside my mind
I always choked on the words within his sight
I always said I would, in bed at night
But,
I was blinded by the speed of life
Now, on angel’s wings he’s taken flight
To have shared his world, I feel delight
I was blinded by the speed of life
And, now it’s too late, I missed my chance
I wasn’t there for his final dance
He never heard me say what I had to say
Now, I miss my father, every day
I was blinded by the speed of life
Now, on angel’s wings he’s taken flight
To have shared his world, I feel delight
I was blinded by the speed of life
I got a Need For Speed
I get behind the wheel and take the lead
When you see me in your rear view mirror you better make room for me
I always come in first never in last cause my car to fast
I never run out of gas
My ride is first class a McLaren F1 it goes too fast like a shot from a gun
When the race starts you think your are in the lead
But I'm so far ahead of you the race is already over for me.
I'll see you at the starting line and take you out again because when you got a Need For Speed the race never ends.