Headlights stream along the strip
Late night dreamers on a trip
Neon lights shining bright
Everyone's feeling lucky tonight
Crowds bustle on the sidewalk
Wild laughter & small talk
Silhouettes smoking cigarettes
Pink Cadillacs & red Corvettes
High rollers & classy chicks
Cowboys getting their kicks
Sharks in suits
Snakeskin boots
The Devil’s drawing them in
Tempting them with sin
He’s playing them all
Watching them fall
He begins his dance
Playing with chance
Gambling with their soul
He lets the dice roll
All bets are on seven
A trip to heaven
Only the dice will tell
Who’s going to hell
Hundred dollar bills
Whiskey & wild thrills
Burning with desire
The city’s on fire
they’re out there,
driving Cadillacs, counting their
money like dead fish,
smoking cigars that curl up in
the air like snakes.
they don’t give a damn
about your pain,
your hunger,
your rent overdue.
they laugh in the dark
of their marble houses,
while we sweat in the sun,
grip the bottle,
bite the lip,
fighting over crumbs
like rats in a sewer.
the system’s built for them,
rigged with smiles and handshakes,
so what do we do with them?
burn them?
or wait for them to rot
from the inside out?
The McCormick family loves wheels
We like bikes, trikes, mopeds and motorcycles
We like Fords, Chevys, Lincolns and Cadillacs.
We are also racers.
Others watch the Indianapolis 500
We like driving like we just left the pit crew.
Our ancestors started us on this journey.
We were having a race on Wednesday
When grandma got on a moped.
I am going to outrun these cycles! She said.
“Let grandma win! Let grandma win! “ we all yelled.
Unfortunately, the little McCormicks are competitive like us.
They outrode, outraced and outran grandma.
The last one to the finish line, she pouted all day.
i never dreamed i would miss
my first haven.
the dusty little room
filled with a misty smell.
windows covered with
dusty soot, outdoors a
little hell.
the abandon flats with shadowy
visitors at night. the empty liquor bottles
left covering the street.
it was a haven of being
on my own, being alone.
the ragged kids playing ball
with winos refuge from nights ago,
the shiny cadillacs parked
in front of the ragged flats.
the corner liquor store
always a busy place.
stray dogs wander
like the children,
just as stray, just as stray.
the daily belles sitting
on porches waiting for
sunset to hit.
pretty themselves up
to report to their
nightly post.
the liquor store closes
long before night.
whites might not
see daylight if the
store stays open late.
the children retreat,
the dogs stray on,
cadillacs cruise,
and the belles walk on.
and i, i got married,
we moved, i miss
delaware and poe,
just another corner of detroit.
Rapacious greed
avarice's creed
voracious appetite
devours every bite
Never enough silver
craves ever more gold
his insatiable lust
never grows old
Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini
Porsche, five Ferraris
Cadillacs and BMW's
beneath him ~ sorry
Charges usurious rent
hoards every last cent
on his family tree
a branch diseased and bent
June 09, 2021
$ Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Anthony Biaanco
Sunlight paints your blush with ruby highlights,
inking you in stunning cinibar tints.
And romantic thoughts glow in your aura,
inspiring both artists and troubadours.
With wafts of romantic inclinations,
your fragrant aroma summons a kiss.
And oft fills sultry souls with thoughts of bliss,
imagining a world built on a wish.
Laid in a book, you await tomorrow,
your crimson color crumbling into dust.
But happy thoughts wash all that's sad away;
as your charming disposition blossoms.
Your buds bloom into a symbol of class,
along with caviar and Cadillacs.
And fuchsia adds glamor to your array;
in a phantasmagorical display.
You accompany faith through dark shadows;
as you ward off scary, sorrowful thoughts.
And mourn with all who cry, clutching your thorns;
comforting, distraught souls without a word.
They set up tents by their big ol' cadillacs
Up the road a-piece from our little house
In a vacant lot where nothing but weeds grew.
Momma said, "Don't you go up there and stare
At them. They might steal you away." And so,
I stayed a good distance, but I went up.
They looked like normal rich folks to me
Except they dressed real strange,
Big-bosomed women wearing flowered skirts
With ruffled blouses in summer's heat
Men in wide-brimmed hats and bright-colored shirts
Going about tending the blazing campfires.
That night Papa said, "Be sure to lock up
The shed. They might steal everything we got."
And we did, locked it up, but far as I know
Nothing was missing the next morning.
I went up again because my curiosity
Was stoked, and I got a little closer to see
Better. They were loading up their trailers
Moving on to some more lucrative place.
FIFTH PLACE WINNER
"2021 Most Significant Poem" Poetry Contest
January 25, 2022
Repair shop
Worms and dinosaur blood, toil and fuel,
Doors I’ll hold for you.
Pure, old as moonlight, the marbled
Cloister of your pleasance I’ll affirm
They will come for your museums, my love.
They will come for your big, fine Cadillacs…
choke-weed and cottonmouths infesting gardens.
So what? A fish bait fate this birth hook?
Before thought, beyond need, freed
Because of you, because love is thicker.
Tired of tending? Offering? Hoping a bite?
Nectar, somewhere, prevalent as air?
Seen it? Have you?
The world, the worm turning?
Hungry?
Eat.
You've been dead for the same amount of time that you lived, forty-two years.
You were loved and your death devastated each and every one of your peers.
You didn't perform in all fifty states, one state that you missed was Montana.
You performed your last concert on June 26, 1977 in the state of Indiana.
Two of your hit songs were 'All Shook Up' and 'Hound Dog'.
You had great taste in motorcycles, you sure did love Hogs.
You had a wonderful life but not a life that was long.
When doctors constantly prescribed those pills, it was wrong.
You loved to give away Cadillacs, you truly had a heart of gold.
It was very sad to lose you when you were only 42 years old.
One of your friends saw you putting a hole in your foot with a drill.
When he asked you why, you said you were doing it to get more pills.
When you died on August 16, 1977, every one of your fans were in tears.
You've been dead for the same amount of time that you lived, forty-two years.
[Dedicated to Elvis A. Presley (1935-1977) who died on August 16, 1977.]
It's going to be another hot Amarillo day, but as I emerge from my car, the morning is still only warm with a gentle breeze blowing. I quickly cross the frontage road and head down the packed earth path. In the distance, I can see my destination, ten Cadillacs with hoods buried and tails sticking out of the ground. The last time I had seen Cadillac Ranch the cars were shiny and recognizable. Now, they are merely metal shells with their insides worn away, spray painted a gallery of colors. Hoping to add my touch to these masterpieces, I am disappointed to find the cars are surrounded by a pool of soggy clay mud, sure to adhere me to the ground as securely as the cars if I step in it. So, grabbing a purple spray can, I add my initial to the alternative works of art on the packed dirt, a small part of myself left behind until man and the elements wear it away, too.
Cadillac garden
front ends planted...tails aloft
graffiti blossoms
6/29/18
for Mick Talbot's Haibun Poetry Contest
He broke into music
When he was just a kid
They sentenced him to trouble
For dancing like he did
How was he supposed to know
He'd sing Jailhouse Rock
When the boy hit the 50's
He stopped the clock
He rolled into Shreveport
In Louisiana Hay
Destination Vegas
Where stars were known to play
Girls got all shook up
When those hips began to sway
He was stealing hearts
And giving Cadillacs away
He was Guilty....
of Rock and Roll
He did time in Memphis
Down in Sun Studio
Check out the halls of Graceland
Where he stashed that solid gold
He was Guilty.....
Of Rock and Roll
His Rock and Roll crown sparkled
With Gold jump suits and capes
He had the girls all screaming
From the worlds center stage
He was Guilty......
Of Rock and Roll.....
If it's a sin to Rock
Who's gonna cast a Rolling stone
We're all guilty.......
Of Rock and roll!
Protected By Copyrights
© Ben Burton 2-8-2015
When sunrise broke, expected clouds
Were nowhere to be seen
Yet, rain was falling in the crowd
Halfway to Beale Street
Across the well-kept, mourning lawn
Inside the noted gates
A million tears for every song
Sprang forth to venerate
The kid who crossed a hundred miles
To reach that flaming star
Gave Cadillacs to catch a smile
Still rode the bumper cars
I sang my way on up the line
And reached the mansion's door
With him inside I knew I'd cry
Returning to the hordes
I cried, anyway
It's rare indeed when poverty
The kind that tests the soul
Gives birth to future royalty
The King of rock and roll
Well, he's gone, gone, gone
Yes, he's gone, gone, gone
In his Graceland home
One last time
Though we still feel love
Sad what he'd become
But despite those drugs
He'll always shine
SUPERIOR – not the lake
To me there are no persons drearier
Than those who think themselves superior,
Think everything in life that they do
Is a little, no, MUCH better than you (do)
She didn’t come right out and make a claim
Not sophisticate was to give it name
As example – I mentioned my dentist
Hers, compared to others by far the best
Sadly, my doctor’s name, somehow, came up
Hers had won the Johns Hopkins world class cup
When I mentioned housing she had a ball
When compared to hers, the Taj Mahal was small
Dare I mention our Jeep parked in the back?
She’d boast of her three bran new Cadillacs
Fed her dog ‘Vet’s Laboratory Test’
Even claimed her Fido’s droppings were best
Then, one day –
Joy! When they had to call an ambulance -
Her chronic case of painful flatulence
I Can’t Believe I Keep Saying Stuff Like That
By Elton Camp
I won’t have any trouble relating to the regular Joe
After all, I only have two hundred fifty million or so
Among the filthy rich, I am not even close to there
I’m only about one-fourth way to being a billionaire
NASCAR doesn’t really hold a lot of interest to me
But of couple of my friends own whole teams you see
Sometimes I forget & make some rather unwise cracks
Like saying that my wife drives a couple of Cadillacs
And when I said that it’s people that I like to fire
Looking back, I wish had, instead, substituted hire
But probably the worst that I have messed up yet
Was in offering to make a ten thousand buck bet
I mean not to speak of wealth, but can’t stick to it
Sometimes I wonder if it’s the devil made me do it
I surely do wish that to nobody it had occurred
That I am as rich as Thurston Howell the Third
I walked down jazz alleys with stingy cigarettes
and a head filled with typewriter dreams,
silently praying to sidewalk gods
for the inhaling of coconut rum,
Chicago and Havana,
minds heavy with thoughts of steel and uranium
in the years before cold war, red missiles,
and the rusting sickle of Russian terror,
seeing dusty men gathered outside newspaper stands
waiting and plotting, in quiet conversations about Che Guevara,
and in America, small bankers with obscene moustaches
fingered money with a capitalist fix, primarily
out of the silk lined jackets of a charading middle class,
that got stuck in first, like early model Cadillacs, blooming
in the 60's like early spring lilacs, violent purple, pink,
and the blue of acid blotter fractal brothers and Grey's
later paintings of cross-sectioned life, where Jesus was spread out
and examined in new eyes of a public embracing science and
the sub-atomic nuclear buzz, in the years before computers
and solitary confinement of plastic and lamplight, in the years
before the war on multicolored terror and human entropy,
here, the rising fist was a message, not a punchline.
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