Long Amarillo Poems

ACT I

Night enters. Ned Sandy: paralysed in eye by gun shot. 

Scene: Mannequin with rotting limbs “Deadman on the Freeway.” 
And instead of being the good guy, he’s good, bad, worse. 
Why kill? Don’t know...

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I said, “Take my hand, girl, let’s go for a ride.
You gotta choose soon, you gotta pick a side.
Pick me, the good, or pick them, the bad."
She said, "Babe, I pick you." That made me...

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At six o’clock the road turned bare
as we rode through Tennessee.
From Nashville to Memphis is a long,
dark stretch of gray and brown trees
and fields where no one ever walks or works.
I’ve often wondered who owns...

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The bike was loaded and packed
The duffle bag strapped to the rack
The air was crisp when we started out at dawn
In the early morning hours we were gone 
Down the road with the wind on...

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Abominable barrage bombards
fortified barracks show
warring subsequently, incandescently,
and brilliantly doth glow
biden time, this
garden variety Joe Schmoe

hunkers down deep amidst disarray
within arched bunker poe
wet tickly donning
pence sieve stance against row
battery weathering incessant assault
invariably waiting for Godot,

albeit devout...

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Abominable barrage bombards
fortified barracks show
warring subsequently, incandescently,
and brilliantly doth glow
biden time, this
garden variety Joe Schmoe

hunkers down deep
within arched bunker poe
wet tickly donning
pence sieve stance against row
battery weathering incessant assault
invariably waiting for Godot,

albeit devout atheist doubting...

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The events that took place in a remote area of New Mexico about 230 miles south of Los Alamos during the predawn hours of July 16, 1945 forever changed the world. In the early morning...

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These old boots, they've sure been around. They don't know where their goin' but they sure know where they've been. Drinkin' Corona and dancing with a Mexican Senorita in Jaurez, the smell of perfume and...

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*This poem is sung to the music of Sade's seminal song, "Smooth Operator."


Intro:

He’s ranting with a spiteful hurl,
and taunting with a choler heart
Spewing crude statements, making lewd comments
He’s hated in seven languages
Zircon nights and silicon...

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12/3/20


I opened and jumped out my window
I saw the bigger picture not just life through a window

Went to help out kinfolk

At times had to do the limbo
Wasn't always simple
Jack be nimble
The real thing, not no...

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Spending a lifetime on the Texas Panhandle prairies in and around Amarillo 
exposes a feller to a unique life style.

	As a youngster and continuing into early manhood, I flirted with the aggregation 
of words to...

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I awaken, alarmed by contagion’s dread,
by the advancing bubonic omen. 
My  muscular spasms unleash, involuntarily.
My astonished malediction yawns, cavernous.
I gawk vacantly in my remaining moments, 
at icy stones beneath my trembling feet. 
Just a...

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Girl, I’m sorry that I called you
So darn late the other night
I started thinkin’ when I was drinkin’ and
Had a thought to call and say hi

Girl, I’m into you so, you're the whole dang show
I...

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It was six days past the seventh 
I was on the road again 
Putting distance in the rear  
Of the places I had been 
Left that girl in Amarillo 
The one in those nice...

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Encuéntrame en mi suspiro del Viejo San Juan

Llévame por la mano al camino de pierdas
Deja que el sol dirija nuestro caminar . . .
La espuma blanca que sube y trae sonrisas y lagrimas
La protección de...

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...inspired by the Robert Earl Keen Jr song 
   'The Road Goes On Forever'



Flying high thru south west Texas
black Camaro's leaking oil,
radiator needs attention,
sputtering, it starts to boil.

Up ahead a service station,
got to...

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Abuelita's shooting cactus desert beauty, beautiful array of amarillo flowers budding.
Daring to touch one of it's prickly thorns. Abulelita's old school charm shakes her bony 
little finger and warns us to leave the cactus alone....

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...inspired by the Robert Earl Keen Jr song 
   'The Road Goes On Forever'


Flying high thru south west Texas
black Camaro's leaking oil,
radiator needs attention,
sputtering, it starts to boil.

Up ahead a service station,
got to...

Read More

...inspired by the Robert Earl Keen Jr song 
   'The Road Goes On Forever'


Flyin' high thru south west Texas
black Camaro's leakin' oil,
radiator needs attention,
sputterin', it starts to boil.

Up ahead a service station,
gotta get...

Read More

...inspired by the Robert Earl Keen Jr song 
   'The Road Goes On Forever'


Flyin' high thru south west Texas
black Camaro's leakin' oil,
radiator needs attention,
sputterin', it starts to boil.

Up ahead a service station,
gotta get...

Read More

...inspired by the Robert Earl Keen Jr song 
   'The Road Goes On Forever'



Flying high thru south west Texas
black Camaro's leaking oil,
radiator needs attention,
sputtering, it starts to boil.
Up ahead a service station,
gotta get...

Read More

...inspired by the Robert Earl Keen Jr song 
   'The Road Goes On Forever'



Flyin' high thru south west Texas
black Camaro's leakin' oil,
radiator needs attention,
sputterin', it starts to boil.

Up ahead a service station,
gotta get...

Read More

It was dusty, dry and endless 
Stretched beneath an empty sky
From horizon to horizon 
Where the turkey buzzards fly,
Like a landscape meant to warn you
Just how far a man can fall.
Except for Ruby in El...

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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...

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I flop at truck stops
hid by other sleeping truckers.
I like the loneliness.
Amarillo, Detroit, Tacoma, Richmond,
places packed and stacked
with the bad and the good.
I scoot by paying no heed,
to features, just forms,
how bodies once glimpsed
sometimes return...

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