The poems I never wrote are exquisite
Deep clear pools that reflect and reveal their readers
Nuanced and subtle, full of symbols and hidden meaning
Peeling back new layers upon each return
The poems I never wrote are bestsellers
Attenborough voiceovers and roadhouse storytellers
On bedside tables, dog-eared and marked up
The subject of disagreements over coffee house scones
The poems I never wrote are a perfect sigh
Lyrical, rolling off the tongue, effortless as breathing
Resolved with delight on the final line
Lacking nothing, possessed of no excess
The poems I never wrote are an enigma
An unanswered question desirous of much
A doorway into a new world fraught with possibility
Mysterious and unresolved, yet satisfyingly so
This is not one of those
—————
Written on 10/06/022
Categories:
roadhouse, imagination, writing,
Form: Free verse
Lost in a card game
that others would pass
I feel the time slowing
while covering fast
A dim all-night roadhouse
blue plate of regret
whose neon but flickers
my hunger to bet
A pot full of memory
has come unannounced
with bare knuckled waging
I raise every doubt
But the road’s calling silent
its direction unclear
my thumb pointing inward
to ante the fear
The odds long but taken
to gamble and run
my fortune extended
and past rebegun
A graveyard sits lonely
on the side of a hill
awaiting those fated
last dealer to kill
A light in the distance…
the ‘Omaha Gate’
it’s twelve minutes early
tomorrow is late
Asleep in the boxcar
alone with myself
the questions keep playing
—one ace left undealt
(Sinking Springs Diner: December, 2021)
Categories:
roadhouse, faith, fear,
Form: Rhyme
I want to run her words
through a carwash, they are not dirty,
just stale, the way a classic corvette
needs a rinse occasionally, but never a re-paint.
Dinner together in a roadhouse,
the nasal song of a country boy
trapped in a ball-breaking melody.
I can’t hear her words,
she can’t hear mine…finally we’re communicating.
An owl in a hollow tree can hear the whole dark forest.
I imagine I am roosting in her throat,
listening, not to her mind or mine,
but Brailing my way around.
In those vocal folds, a little girl is weeping.
a mother belittles and scolds.
The server comes around. “How you’ll doing.”
She and the waitress look to me,
but I am still in the hollow of her throat
a space now witnessing
my own doleful litany of sad songs.
Categories:
roadhouse, poetry,
Form: Free verse
The Doors of perception
maverick swinging carefree
to billboard hits in
rock’s american counterculture
face of the sixties
vocalist Jim Morrison
steering to the pulse of free love
in the heat of Los Angeles
riders on the storm
loving madly an L.A. woman
parading Gloria absolutely live
rocking to roadhouse blues
in front of the Morrison Hotel
forever longing for the sun
he’d say to touch me and light my fire
people are strange
fame and money
up in flames
it’s a shame
gone in a flash
booze and partying
taken too far
age twenty seven
life of a rock star
no one here gets out alive
like so many others
joined the 27 Club
buried now in northeastern Paris
true to his own spirit
where he belongs
in the Poets’ Corner
Read on air by invitation ~ July 10, 2020 'LATE NIGHT POETS'
AP: Honorable Mention 2021
Submitted on June 28, 2020 for contest STRAND COMPLETELY NEW POETRY (2) sponsored by BRIAN STRAND - HONORABLE MENTION
Categories:
roadhouse, celebrity, death, life, surreal,
Form: Free verse
Trudging along thinking about the past
As the same old story is set to last
Plotting in my maps of memories pleading to the sky
As I’m lost on life’s highway just swotting at the flies
Once and a while there’s a Roadhouse selling happiness
As I walk out the door I get it together more or less
The shimmering highway stretches out ahead
Thinking all the time about what’s left behind instead
I paid my dues and I’ll take the ride
Leaving nothing except my foolish pride
For the world will turn and the wind will blow
And at the end of it all what will I really know.
© Paul Warren Poetry
Categories:
roadhouse, life,
Form: Ballad
Kelps Seaworthy: WELCOME FANS: IT'S BEEN A LONG WEEK AND A LONGER WEEKEND HERE AT PRO WRESTLING SUPERSTARS.
WE HAVE SOME EXCITING NEWS FOR THOSE OF
YOU WHO HAVEN'T HAD ACCESS TO OUR ONLINE NEWS.
AS YOU KNOW T" THE BIG SKY" WAS TO TAKE ON
"kETTLER " IN A tEXAS rOADhOUSE MATCH.
WELL ON HIS WAY TO THAT MATCH "{ THE BIG SKY" WAS DENIED A TITLE BOUT AGAINST THE wORLD cHAMPION BY THE CHAMPIONSHIP COMMITTEE. iNSTEAD
THE COMMITTEE AWARDED THE BOUT TO " KETTLER".
WELL IN mONTREAL qUEBEC cANADA, kETTLER TOOK ON THE wORLD cHAMPION, WHELPS COLBRAN. DURING THE BOUT THE bIG SKY INTERFERED AND CAUSED COLBRAN TO LOSE THE MATCH AND THE WORLD TITLE.
MAKING " KETTLER " THE NEW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION.
WELL WHEN IT CAME TIME FOR THE TEXAS ROAD HOUSE BOUT KETTLER WOULD BE DEFENDING THE GOLD AGAINST THE BIGSKY.
THE MATCH WHERE THE RULES WERE CLEAR, FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE, NO DQ, COUNT OUTS COULD FORCES A TITLE CHANGE, AND BEST TWO OUT OF THREE FALLS.
IT DIDN'T TAKE LONG." THE BIG SKY" WON THE TITLE, PINNING " KETTLER" WITHIN THREE MINUTES OF HIS SUBMISSION WIN, TO WIN THE WORLD TITLE AT 14:13. THE NEW CHAMPION," THE BIG SKY"
Categories:
roadhouse, music, sports,
Form: Classicism
eye at the center
friend to chaos
cycles spinning
round space time
roadhouse corner
eatery and saloon
two eggs easy over
toast and coffee please
stan sand
Categories:
roadhouse, appreciation,
Form: Free verse
Her eyes were blue
Her flaws were few
As she lay with her head on my pillow
The day was lost
'Til our paths crossed
In the sandy streets of Amarillo
I took a chance
Asked her to dance
In a honky tonk just outside of town
We danced to swing
When it was king
In this old roadhouse where they love the sound
We made a plan
To meet again
On the full moon 'neath the weepimg willow
But came the dawn
And she was gone -
I wait 'neath a tree in Amarillo
5/11/2017
For contest Easy by Skat A
Categories:
roadhouse,
Form: Verse
THE ANSWER IS CAKE
WHY AM I ALWAYS HUNGRY
I DO NOT KNOW
I ALWAYS EAT PIZZA
AND I STILL DO NOT KNOW
I DON’T GET WIDER OR THINNER
WHO WILL EVER KNOW
I EAT PIZZA
I EAT STARBUCKS
I EAT TACO BELL
I EAT SUBWAY
I EAT TEXAS ROADHOUSE
AND I AM STILL HUNGRY
WHAT CAN CURE MY HUNGER
PIZZA? NO
STARBUCKS?NO
TACO BELL? NO
SUBWAY? NO
TEXAS ROADHOUSE? NO
A CAKE…? PROBABLY
UM, A CAKE
A CAKE SOUNDS GOOD
NOW, SOMEBODY NEEDS TO BUY ME A CAKE
Categories:
roadhouse, food,
Form: Free verse