Long Freight Poems
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Home was just a mellow state of mind
A place a rambling man would never find
Home was anywhere the rivers flowed
Spent most of his days on the open road
Couldn't find a reason to settle down
Morning would find him in another town
Standing still was too big a price to pay
He wouldn't have it any other way
He's a dying breed standing in the rain
Longing for the sound of an old freight train
Sometimes sleeping 'neath the stars above
Living the life he's learned to love
Got all he needs strapped across his back
Too much up ahead to start looking back
Live for the moment. Don't regret the past
All the years go by so fast
In a cheap hotel on a lonely night
He felt the pain and the time was right
He prayed Dear Jesus I'll no longer roam
Tell my Father I'm coming home.
Go on, spoil me rotten
Wrap me in wooly cotton
Enroll me in a class
Where I’m taught the art of grass.
Like your food I always ate
Life is served up on a plate
Now I’m hard to satiate
And you’re the object of my hate.
CH
Give me what I want,
Give it to me now
If you won’t placate me
I take it anyhow
Give it, give it, give it,
Give it to me now,
If you won’t placate me
I take it anyhow.
Go on, spoil me rotten,
Until I’ve forgotten
How to live a decent life
Let alone attract a wife.
But, hey, I’m qualified
To tell lies of how I lied
It’s all music to her ears
It’s the truth mother fears.
CH
Go on, spoil me rotten,
I’m your misbegotten
Eighty pounds over weight
Got a job hauling freight
From Brazil to LA
Where my tic gave me away
To someone from the DEA…
My lawyer had a field day.
CH
I’m no longer spoiled rotten
I wear denim, not cotton
Can’t get hold of a fix
To ease these incessant tics.
I’ve lost weight and all hope
Clinging to an end of rope
Knowing now my selfishness
Was nurtured by your weakness.
Take what you want,
Take it off me now,
If it don’t placate you
I give it anyhow
Take it, take it, take it,
Take it off me now.
If it don’t placate you
I give it anyhow.
Wind howls down Route 66 like a freight train cry,
Dusty motel neon burns through the Oklahoma sky.
Donna was fourteen with a heart soft as rain,
Till the devil rolled up another innocent girl slain.
"Pretty little thing, you wanna fly high?"
Needle kissed her arm, now the stars ain’t so bright.
They pick 'em like wildflowers, sweet and untamed,
Lick 'em with poison, honey laced with pain.
Stick 'em with promises, hollow as hell,
'em and leave 'em— leaving another shell.
Mama’s Bible sits on the window like a ghost,
Donna’s laugh turned to whispers, fading fast.
Sheriff turns his head when the money is right,
While girls disappear into the Oklahoma night.
Pill bottles rattle like a death march tune,
Prison bars or a grave—one’s coming soon.
Writes her name in the dirt with a shaking hand,
"Remember me, Lord, if You still give a damn."
They pick 'em like wildflowers, sweet and untamed,
Lick 'em with poison, honey laced with pain.
Stick 'em with promises, hollow as hell,
'em and leave 'em—leaving another shell.
The wind don’t answer, it whistles her name,
Just carries the echoes of a life gone to waste.
And the men keep driving, hunting fresh prey,
Oklahoma's red dirt covers Donna’s grave.
Dad was forever in a hurry
His life filled with tension and worry
He always had to be right on time
If not, he preferred ten minutes early
A terror behind the wheel of his car
He cursed at Heaven and the stars
He'd ride the tail of a slowpoke
Here are names that he'd invoke
You moron, you idiot, you jerk!
You're making me late for work
Nincompoop, numbskull, and pea-brain
You're slower than a worn-out freight train
Dad, of course, was 100% right
And always ready for a fight
'Til the day this came out from my little brother
~ 'That moron drives like my friggin grandmother!'
Say what you want
Today, tomorrow, it’s a another month
Right now I feel captured, capsuled
But tomorrow, I’m changing my stars
Dealt something like a rapture, a lap full
With the misery of a prisoner, I’m rearranging these bars
The car can stay in the same place
Keep your keys, I supply my own need
Living days alone has granted me felony’s and fees
Got a lot of dreams but they can lay where they are
Hold my starry nights as freight in a glass jar
So simple, so precious, so brittle
Teardrops in open dimples, No longer am I up from the middle
Should these words burn, then they burn
But if they remain, then it’s my claim to mourn
Once more as an old man, I’ll be look into that shattered jar
Only to find a platter of lonely nights in a distant, so far
I wanna write forever
Be we each know I’m gonna die
I wanna capture these dreams
But I’m never gone try
I’m gonna write forever
Tomorrow, you and I may die
Form:
MY SIBLINGS' FATHER
JUDGE BURDON
other children feared monsters under their bed
i feared the one living under our roof.
his hair was nimbus black
with a storm's thunder in his voice.
his fists were freight train brown
ball bearing knuckles
frostbite blue was his touch
with empty icebox eyes
his smile untrusted
growling words spoken like tangled spaghetti
he was my mother's husband
my siblings' father
a childhood of baseballs never thrown
bruises and shattered bones medicated with lies
happiness diluted with tears
in a house with screams undetected
when asked what i wanted to be
i testified "far from here"
now, fiber optic home front news
faceless words
cancer eating away at your life
with the fury of a piranha
your disease now my champion
fighting with the courage i was unable to muster
your epitaph written in my adolescence
while plotting your midnight homicide
again you leave
unaccountable for your actions
i'm left to wrestle with the demons
not the strenght to forgive
my memory too scarred to forget
i'll keep the battle lines drawn
your monument
let the puzzle piece fall where it may
good bye old man
you'll be missed like a pit vipers bite
your pain can no longer touch me
from the grave.
I travel the whole land
of blistering sun and whirring wind
to seek revelation;
and I come from the deep south,
delivering my freight to the north:
making of this lonely life a damnation...
I drive past Dallas,
the city of cowboys...
to chase the fumes
of your burning engine;
you didn't leave a note
or didn't bother to call...
your wavy,brown hair
blowing and glowing and
you laugh in your
Chevy convertible;
who's that man you are talking to?
Am I being trashed by you?
I spent long hours driving,
hearing my own voice
trailing off into silence...
even my words have no meaning;
there's no strenght and main:
to assure me I won't die in vain!
I trave the whole land
to seek revelation
through cities with steel and glass skycrapers
and busy habors jammed with sailships;
I stop for the night at a nearby hotel
to go to sleep...to dream dreams
I can't imagine to be real,
why haven't I used my intuition?
I've been trying to save money
to buy the dream-home you dreamed of;
but in the hush and rush of this daily living,
I've neglected your feminity...
but the most important thing you wished for:
was to have me beside you and feel complete!
I roll along a dark ledge
Teetering between yesterday and oblivion
Contemplating one final sin
My ultimate act of inner hate
Do I have a choice or is it fate?
A half second away from nowhere
Feeling cool air blowing through my hair
Wishing it could blow away my despair
Lungs sucking in blackened air
Wondering if I ever mattered
Imagining blood splattered
on dappled concrete
As bones and surface meet
I flip gleefully
Imagining my relief
Heart pounding in chest
Beneath the letter held close to my breast
Within it all my sins confessed
Carefully laid out goodbyes
Written in rhymes
Thanking loved ones for the good times
Apologizing
Agonizing
Trying to explain
The coagulation in my brain
Thoughts that overrun me like a morbid freight train
Sunshine that never penetrates my rain
One pennied foot in front of the other
I roll out on the air
Wondering if anyone will care
My mind hyper aware
A feeling that someone is there
In that instant I change my mind
Rotate and look behind
There the Devil stands
I see his hateful smile
He's been whispering all the while
In his hand he holds a file
Labeled "Souls I've Taken!"
I'm both stirred and shaken
I feel my mind breaking
as I'm awaken
Mom says "get out of bed"
My eyes wide open
Thankfully not dead
Remembering what the Devil's file said
Sun shining brightly
Through my window and pain
I'm alive and sane
Not a concrete stain
I thank God I'm here
Feeling thankful
Once again!
For Shadow's contest
Written March 5th 2015
Pecos Bill rode herd in the vast forlorn.
His quiet Paint gobbled buttered popcorn.
A tornado, in a fit,
Came for a whirlwind visit.
“Paint, meet Curley. His back I will adorn.”
Bill grabbed his rope and threw a loop with hope
And saddled the whirlwind so Paint could lope,
Leisurely grazing along
While Bill sang a peaceful song
Though the twister used top spin, Bill could cope.
Whirly raced north swift as antelope might.
Picking up barns, tossing them left and right,
Heaving a freight train five miles.
Bill hung on with joyful smiles,
“Almost beats chasing roadrunners at night.”
Bill rode that twister into a broke nag,
That lay city curbside limp as a rag,
A sadder, but wiser storm.
Where his horse Paint, true to form,
Whinnied by the nag, wanting to play tag.
A jolly sheriff saw Bill ride in view,
He chose at least three tickets to issue:
Parking in a tow away;
No emissions valve that day;
Driving a twister with no license too.
Tale Tales 1 Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Jeff Kyser
Date Written: 3/14/2022
Used Poetry Soup Syllable Counter
Two tiny dots
on a vast landscape
wandering aimlessly
Ginger and John
Man and his cat
a long time together
on buses and freight trains
hither and yon
Jobs here and there
a few extra dollars
some milk and a hamburger
then down the road
Under the stars
sleeping in green fields
the kitty exploring
his grassy abode
Then came the day
John called for Ginger
but his little companion
never returned
The world cares not
for a lonely man's heartaches
what befell Ginger
John never learned
Mourning his friend
John wept so bitterly
searching once more
before he'd depart
One tiny dot
on a vast landscape
wandering aimlessly
broken in heart
© Mike Wise
4/20/18