genuine germane gentlemen
hitchhiked a ride with Harry’s hen
implausible imperative imagination
justifying jollity and jubilation
keeping kibitzer’s kinfolk kidney keen
labyrinth of lollapalooza lawfully lean
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
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
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.
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
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 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!
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
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)
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)
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)
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
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, 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
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"
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