Hitchhiked Poems | Examples

she must be dead

a supernatural force must have saved the reckless driver
the Ford she was maneuvering is scrunched in three ways
everyone who saw the auto said “the driver must be dead”
she is not dead
she has hitchhiked home to get the keys to her husband’s truck
she is driving to work in it
I know because this walking talking miracle who survived is me

The Train

Each is a piece, a small part
of a composite that has come
together in a morning,
the frayed strands of dreams 
knitted into a waking timed now
to a slow tread on a familiar street. 
Then suddenly, careering through 
the center of my thoughts a train 
comes with bells at a crossing 
clanging loudly and wheels grinding 
on rails heading off towards
a distant point in the past. I stop

and see myself, late teens, 
leaving home, riding the interstate 
with dreams spilling out 
of a duffle bag, head in a cloud
of hope. I was Rimbaud on rails, 
high on poetry that I took straight. 
Six months in a one room flat
I ran out of money and a literary career,
hitchhiked back home to sink
into a wintery despair.

A lifetime has passed 
and I have left a poem tied 
to the end of each year as if
marking my way. The words
of most have now weathered away
to a silence. I write as a form
of prayer to that greater silence
and on still mornings, hear
the sound of a train in the far
distance growing quieter.

Riding

Riding
a ship on stormy seas,
it feels like I’m flying;
Always on a trapeze 
I leap and keep laughing;

I’m loud,
and spontaneous too;
More than a little proud,
after all I’ve been through;
I walked on fire then bowed;

I’m spiked 
energy on the waves;
Their gravity hitchhiked
now it never behaves;
Roughly tumbled left jacked;

Coffee
after the longest night
tasting that moonlit sea;
Baby, just hold on tight,
I was made for crazy.

Best Vacation Ever

 
The best vacation that I ever had,
was when I hitchhiked to Miami, Florida;
now, I know it was dangerous and bad,
but the trip was full of joyful euphoria !

I met wonderful people on the way,
and I stopped for a while in many quaint places;
for the first time I felt blue ocean spray,
soon, I was as brown as all the other faces !

On arrival I rented a cheap room,
so what if all my neighbors were mostly old folk;
I was like a sweet beach flower in bloom,
but something happened to me next that was no joke !

For I had stayed too long for a tourist,
and got arrested and deported by the court;
given a warning and slap on the wrist,
with free air fare home and a drive to the airport !

______________________
January 18, 2022


Poetry/Rhyme/Best Vacation Ever
Copyright Protected, ID 01-1422-649-18
All Rights Reserved, 2022, Constance La France

Written for the Premier contest, My Favorite Vacation in Rhyme
sponsor, L MILTON HANKINS, Judged 02/04/2022

Fourth Place

Children

We hardly knew we were children 
When we trudged like soldiers 
Through the new snow
As it draped the barren maple
Trees 
Of the northeast 
In a new winter coat,
We barely knew another world sang like 
A mutable wind, 
Beyond the phantom of
Small town madness
Where matriarchal rules 
Danced like the sugarplum fairy 
Right into the minds of its youth...
So,
Some of us hitchhiked out, 
Long hair and guitars in hand, 
Some flew to colleges out west,
And those that never left
Couldn’t believe there could be 
One small bit of grace 
In a new chorus of thought 
Right smack in the middle of change,
So they stayed,
Just to be sure the four 
Precise seasons 
Still snapped into place, 
And they too
Had children 
Who didn’t know they were children 
Year 
After year.

Mariah Gets To Hollywood

Mariah needed to get to the Hollywood Hills
She recognized this mission was her destiny
Tell everyone her mother encouraged her
It was 1974, when rides were free

She hitchhiked from Ohio to California
Singing folk songs with strangers 
In VW buses, muddy farm pickups, 
She spent fifty-six minutes in a limousine.

The weather became warmer, almost balmy.
Sorry about the Santa Ana winds the natives apologized.
Mariah stood on her tippy toes, letting the winds blow her shirt.
She had never been this excited in her life.

This was a magical place, a haven away from ice and snow.
She could sleep on the street, there was no wind chill of sixteen below.
Do you want to just stay here by yourself? Her last ride asked her.
He was an older man, in designer clothes.

Why not? She said. I am in heaven here, Nirvana.
He offered her twenty dollars, but she said the ride was enough.
She was living her dream, riding the wave of enthusiasm.
So happy, she knew she could fly!

Hitchhiking Tales

When I was a young man
 I was foolish 
and not afraid of anything 

In the summer of 1975 
I took a Greyhound bus 
across the country
 when my bus pass was stolen 

I hitchhiked
 across the country 
and for two and 1/2 months 
I traveled across the country

meeting all sorts of very strange people
 experiencing the underbelly of American Society 
now that I am 65 
and I think back upon those days 
I am horrified 
that I did that 

because now that I'm old man 
I'm much more prudent 
and much more careful 
and much more afraid

but back then 
being young and foolish 
I did what a lot of young 
and foolish people do 

boldly go into the world 
without a plan 
just seeing where life took me 
that made all the difference 
in the world

You Made Me Love You

I was twenty, 
 you were nineteen, 
  that day along the mall 

When I heard a guitar 
  from deep inside, 
  that round auditorium hall 

Up on stage with legends, 
  Son House, Muddy, 
  Johnny Winter too 

A red haired, freckle faced, 
  blue eyed girl 
  commenced to sing the blues 

You started with an apology, 
  saying you were outclassed 
  and over matched 

But once that voice 
  left your heart and flew 
   ….in nothing did you lack 

I followed you out 
  that afternoon, 
  in the late State College Fall 

And after fifty years of looking back, 
 every moment 
  I recall 

I walked you to the bus 
  as you said: 
  “We're in Harrisburg tonight 

“Why don't you come, 
   it might be fun, 
   from there I catch a flight” 

The bus was full, 
  my eyes looked south 
  as I hitchhiked down #322 

Fate unexplained, 
  life forever changed
   -that special gift from you 

(Villanova Pennsylvania: Looking Back- March, 2018)

'you Did Make Me Love You'

I was twenty,
  and you were nineteen
  that day along the mall

When I heard a guitar
  from deep inside
  that round auditorium hall

Up on stage with legends 
  Son House, Muddy,
  Johnny Winter too

A red haired, freckle faced,
  blue eyed girl
  commenced to sing the blues

You started with an apology
  saying you were outclassed
  and over matched

But once that voice
  left your heart and flew
   ….in nothing did you lack

I followed you out 
  that afternoon
  in the late State College Fall

And after fifty years of looking back
  every moment
  I recall

I walked you to the bus 
  as you said:
  “We’re in Harrisburg tonight

“Why don’t you come,
   it might be fun
   from there I catch a flight”

The bus was full,
  my eyes looked south
  as I hitchhiked down #322

Fate unexplained
  life forever changed
   —that special gift from you

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2018)

Rip Tide

I hitchhiked up to Limbo
  to await that final toll

But lost my way when Siren’s called
  which led me to the shoals

My thumb went back inside my palm,
  their voices soft and low

No closer to those pearly gates
 —this darkened undertow

(Villanova Pennsylvania: February, 2018)

Zany

People think they see Bigfoot roaming
around in the vast wilderness of the forest,
when it's really my 66 year old left over
from Woodstock very hairy hippie cousin,

Who decided 20 years ago to live off of the land,
having had hitchhiked out west with little or no definite plan,
he just hiked out to the forest impulsively one day a free man,
where he lives in a tree house sort of like Tarzan,

He's always been like a Viking very big and burly,
but very seldom does his mood turn mean or surly,
and since he hasn't seen a barber in more than 20 years,
the sight and smell of him can cause an awful lot of fear,

And although he's very hirsute with hair everywhere,
he doesn't cover up with not even a stitch of underwear,
and being labeled Bigfoot he doesn't want to disappoint,
that's why to this day hikers still run, scream and point,

Some brave one's even stick around and take his picture,
with my cousin mimicking an ape running round with a little snicker,
so if you see a picture of Bigfoot on the cover of some rag paper,
more than likely it's just my hippie cousin out naked enjoying nature.


11-27-16

The Best Times of My Life - Born In the 50's

It was a time when we were troubled
Work shifts had to be doubled
We didn’t earn enough to take a wife

We protested a worthless war
Cried over the Ohio four
Watched newscasts full of strife

Our innocence had died
Our President had lied
And … it was the best time of my life

Our hair, we didn’t cut
Free love, cost us too much
We separated seeds with a broken kitchen knife

We hitchhiked to Yasgurs’ farm
Got tattoos on our arms
And laughed at the bungling Barney Fife

We were hungry and we were thin
Too young to know it then
But … these were the best times of my life

Now, most of us are gone
Radio stations don’t own a Joplin song
Another obit sends a friend off to the afterlife

My head now holds no hair
Once again, I have no buck to spare
Another worthless war adds to our daily strife

But, as we near the end
I still think of you my friend
And how you shared the best times of my life

Once Upon a Time When Time Counted

Once upon a time.
When time counted !!!

Once upon a time, what lived in my Girls, mind, 
was all I needed to see the world by, and for it to be.
Now the father in me has become not, you see, 
but memories of their play, days to never again find, 
as from life, they shot me out,
leaving me to think, of days in parks, a scream, a shout,
higher, higher as I push them on their swings,
reminiscing of walks, through forests dark, in summer springs,
through the snow, in the pouring rain,
nights within childhood pain, 
laying and playing on many beaches, 
all within the ocean’s reaches. 
In youthful notions, motions from bouncing on beds,
rainbows of many colours filling their heads 
as we hitchhiked across Canada’s highways 
and through many of adventure’s byways 
that crossed many meandering brooks,
that now lay dormant in so many of my books. 
Rivers cold, shivers bold, quivers as the story is told 
of all that memory hold, in words that showed, 
in many thousands of pictures that will never be sold. 
 
B. J. “A” 2
February  3rd 2001

Sweet

By Michael J Falotico

                                                           I hitchhiked so far.
                                                  Just me and my dreams folded.
                                                           All so nicely placed.
                                                    And now over my shoulder.
                                                    With my bag of sweet tricks.
                                                    
                                                           I fly in your dreams.
                                                  Like fruit your tasting my tongue.
                                                         Each treat is pulled out.
                                                    And deep on the bottom sits.
                                                           A warm kiss for you.
                                                   

"Bag of Tricks" contest
sponsored my Linda "The Sweetheart of P.S."
AKA "Jersey Girl"

Traveler

I've seen Paris
I've seen Greece
I've even seen Venice
money well spent 
to achieve divine peace

I've hitchhiked through the desert
walked the Manhattan streets
played imaginary football with cactus
ran a marathon in a city made of concrete

met many faces 
let many of them go
turned my back, without looking back
poetic verses now grow.

went to a black and white ball in the hills
played basketball in the slums
partied with many different cultures
hell, that's what makes life fun

I've seen prejudice
and all the pain it brings
I've seen blacks and Jews persecuted
in their favor i choose to sing

I've seen the religious ethics
of churches world wide
heard many sermons, different principles
i will not choose a side

traveled one hundred thousand miles
from coast to coast,
swam naked in the river Nile
invited Ghandi, played his host

I have lived in in the ghetto, 
ate my dumplings fried,
spent countless nights at Hilton,
there's a limitless fortune in this mind.

Jared Pickett
10/25/04
Asavvy1

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