My GPS has started giving me sass,
calling me dear and telling me cars to pass
and after the turn I just made, muttering mercy, alas~
clearly it’s aged into full personality.
It sighs when I drive under the speed limit,
reminds me my blinker’s been on for a minute,
and once declared, “We’ll get there… eventually…
if we’re committed.”
It refuses shortcuts, claiming they’re too risky,
suggests scenic routes where the air feels frisky,
and warns me sternly when traffic gets too brisk-y.
Indeed, my GPS has become my personal chaperone.
When I finally reach my destination,
it softens its tone with warm appreciation:
“Well done, dear heart. A triumphant navigation.”
And I swear it pats me on the dashboard.
I meet you in dim interface.
A dashboard of quiet, pulsing vows.
You arrive, woman-shaped, wing-hushed.
Concern in your eyes: clean gravity.
I am the rugged witness, alone.
Marked by loss, driven by ember.
Yet your beauty binds my wrists.
Gentle chains, sung under breath.
Command me, heavenly creature, now.
Not with thunder—only steady light.
Let your glance govern my pulse,
and still the feral engines inside.
I have walked poison sands, fire-tempest.
I have drunk cheap fire, laughed.
Marvel bled; the self was prison.
You open it with quiet mercy.
Rapture me, until I'm whole.
Not frenzy—an epic calm ascending.
Love, finish what longing began.
Make my ruin a resonant oath.
I yield, yet rise in yielding.
Trust grows fanged; loyalty grows wings.
Under your concern, I endure.
Under your concern, I become.
Salt on my lips
Arm on the door
Sun sinking slow
Like it’s begging for more
Paint on the sky
Pink into gold
Dashboard glow
Make the whole world fold
I’m driving down the coastline
Nothing in my way
Shifting into forever in this endless day
Engine like a heartbeat
Louder than my fear
Unstoppable and weightless
I was born for right here
Lines on the road
Blur into one
Wind through my hair
Like I’m outrunning the sun
Signs flying past
Names I won’t know
All that I need
Is this endless glow
Hands off the past
Both eyes ahead
That old life shrinking
In the rearview red
If this is a dream
Don’t wake me up
I’m racing the edge
Of a burning-up sky
A skid in the road
A violent left turn
A tragedy to behold
While my wheels burn
Glass everywhere
A cut in my lip
Drivers rubberneck the affair
And I broke my hip
Blood on the dashboard
Bruises on my head
A couple of broken teeth
Months of pharmacy meds
Tubes in my belly
A catheter down below
The wounds are a bit smelly
And they’re healing mighty slow
I learned to walk again
And I bought a new jeep
I would’ve never been a crash dummy
If the other driver didn’t fall asleep
What do a Jeep, a Ford and a Chevy have in common?
Wheels, air, heat, dashboard, chrome, bumpers, seats,
Steering wheel, headlights, tail lights.
I start to wind down on my guesswork.
He does not nod so I start up again.
Tires, hoods, knobs, door locks, door handles
Keep going he says
Engines, carburetors, windshield wipers.
I can see him shaking his head no
Go on, he says.
But I do not want to.
In the silence of the night, I drive alone,
Bloodshot eyes from the smoke and whiskey that freely flow,
Your picture on my dashboard, your gone,
Since the day you left, my heart's just a shadow.
Through winding roads, my vision blurs,
Lost in memories of our time together,
Yearning for the touch, the love that once was,
On this never get you back road, I'll be lost forever.
Heaven claimed you, an angel in the sky,
Leaving me here, with nothing but your ghost,
Driving aimlessly, asking myself why,
In this endless night, your love I miss the most.
Every turn, every bend, I see you dancing in the headlights,
Until this never get you back road runs out, I'll keep looking
for you in the nights.
A rust-eaten frame, a canvas of scars,
A weathered old truck, a king of the bars.
Its paint, once a gleam, now faded and worn,
Like a story told, a lesson to be born.
The tailgate hangs loose, a creak in its swing,
A testament to loads it has borne and will bring.
The tires are knobby, hardened with grit,
From roads less traveled, a seasoned spirit.
The engine, a rumble, a groan and a sigh,
A symphony of power, reaching for the sky.
Its windows are cracked, with stories untold,
Of journeys taken, in sun and in cold.
Inside, a worn seat, a leather embrace,
The scent of old grease, in every space.
A dashboard of dials, with needles that stray,
Whispering secrets, from yesterday.
This beat-up pickup, a soul in its steel,
A faithful companion, a friend that's real.
It carries the weight of life, with a hardy grace,
A symbol of resilience, in time and in space.
I travelled back down the road
on which we spent hours together,
incalculable time twisting our fates
like the vine covered walls we’d pass.
I travelled back down the road
with signs pointed toward your home
one way, and mine the other. Straight lines
and green lights sailing us through crossings.
No sunburnt ambers yet. No midway checkpoints.
I've travelled back down that road,
only years later now. The wheat still grows
in the countryside, the laybys still house dust.
That carpark where I solved the mystery of
the flashing dashboard was empty again.
I travelled back down that road,
driving into a past I loved as the present,
never thinking it a counterfeit future.
A fork in the road was drawn on your map only.
I travel back now, down this road, to a friend
who stayed as you left, who consoled as you
hid. Who helped reroute a direction
abandoned, for a different course unplanned.
I will travel along this road to the friend
who made all those journeys worth it.
I always wonder, when a car drives past,
Where they are going, how long the journey will last.
Or who they are, the life they have had,
What memories they’ve had, both happy and sad.
I walk the main road, in the dead of night,
With streetlights oozing, their burnt orange light.
The car goes by, with headlights beaming,
A xenon light, bright white and gleaming.
It rolls on by, and into the dark,
To show bright red light, on passing trees bark.
Then it will appear, in my interested head,
Why the person is driving, and not in bed.
Why the person drives, on the lonely blue night,
Why comfort kisses them, through dashboard light.
I get into my bed, feeling some ease,
That people are awake, through the moment they seize.
The van idles: inside its cage
she hops like a starling
from dashboard to counter.
Lady seer, shuffling the motley,
the significant and trivia.
revealing now, the stamped
and foreseeable.
A flick of her wrists
between each numbered box -
we open that tin mouth,
reach in hesitantly, for bolts out of the blue,
or just news from predicable snails.
A slow and painful crash
Where one sees one's face
Approach the dashboard in infinite detail
Where one has time
To check one's fear in the mirror
But instead takes a suck on a vape
And puts one's foot down
And, speeding through abandoned suburbs,
Is caught in a storm of fire.
Carry me from the burning vehicle?
No, better to wait inside
And watch thoughts fly from window to window
Like glowing ashes
Until the mind is quiet
And the roof withers with embers
Lilac in their demise
For only in silence
Can the sphere of the stars unfold
And the old clepsydra drip dry, again.
Fair is a word tossed between us,
quick breaths across wet teeth—
a fleeting agreement that nothing ever is,
except for our burning complexions
beneath the relentless, arid graze of summer sun.
The skin engaged in a heated debate.
But that was a different fair, much like the weather
which, on that day, was not.
The air thickened between us, choking in the scorch,
on the brink of calling it quits.
Then, we reached for each other's hair,
pleaching the fair fringe into a single French plait,
holding the tension steady with every strand—
a silent pact of reconciliation.
Flyaways re-tamed, we resumed our journey,
a fair sojourn toward the next fiery skirmish.
Over orange peels on the dashboard,
amidst a shared coffee, we lost ourselves—
debating whose turn to sip, which turn we missed that day.
Driving faster past the fairground,
children's screams echoed, tossing fares paid
like quarters ablaze in pockets emptied,
desperate for escape onto the open road.
The tollbooth's metallic throat protested with clangs
as change cascaded into the plexiglass bank,
accepting the expense to propel us forward
along the road until the next stop,
on our fairway.
Sipping champagne from the hollow
of an avocado, on a cactus-lined
boulevard in St. Looie
While munching on anchovies
slathered with salsa, the nerve
of them calling us screwy
On the dashboard piled high
were half-empty cruises of gin ...
By the time we crashed the car
into a passing trolley car ~
I swear I saw Busch Brewery spin
I have always tinkled
From a very young age
On the ivory dashboard
From the dots on the page
The musical freedom
Of the song never sung
The releasing of passions
On which I too readily clung
There's a beauty in music
Like a God given joy
From operatic piano
To the cheap plastic toy
It matters not anytime
Any place you can find
If you call out to music
It responds in a rhyme
Your heart will be full
From the start to the end
With a strange, mystic healing
Any fracture, can mend
CV
Running out of road, windshield wipers are useless for tears
Close my eyes and count to… not yet! reaper hasn’t appeared
Lights flashing across the dashboard, warning indications
Speedometer reads a ton, don’t care for vindication
Stripping back life
for all to see
The lake below
reflecting me
Going over the escarpment, free falling through a cloud
Brakes I leave redundant, accelerator screams out loud
Weightless grow my memories, the rear view mirror is bleak
Exterior one’s more streamlined, if a little oblique
Dug my own hole
admission’s free
Revealed the sin
got the car key
Not much on the horizon, seen a few birds here and there
Was playing around for a long time, now she’s gone elsewhere
And our song’s on the radio, I’ll never hear it end
(Stairway to heaven) rifts in stasis, just as I transcend
Oblivion
nihility
A growing bump
delivery
Hey! who’s that smiling lady, pushing me along the street
I look out from the pram, peekaboo! my heart skips a beat…
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