Rubberneckers Poems | Examples


List of Member Poems

Premium Member Away from the Wreckage

Holding up traffic
is a terrible pileup
on the interstate -
the opposite side also
is slowed by rubberneckers

Many are injured
while six have been declared dead
as folks wonder why -
cops investigate the scene
while sirens are heard wailing

flung far from her car
lies a woman and cell phone
which has solved the case -
messaged at time of the crash:
“I am dying to get home”

Premium Member The Jury

Though they filed in one by one and marching to the music

The decree was silence yet those devils kept marching

The Day of Judgement has been coming for a long time

Praying for solace , and waiting for the rain

Refreshing rain to wash the parade of inequity but the marching

The rain doesn’t condemn ,it renews and refreshes and remembers

Remembers   the past and nurtures the future and the tide

Don’t forget the tide , it brings one in and takes it back

Those rubberneckers  keep me alert for the Sun

They get inside of me waiting for me to make just one mistake

But the sun waits for me as well as does the rain but the marchers

They plod on and on but God found me free and gave me ablution

Let the bells toll, the children sing and the sun shine on all of me

If the thought doesn’t fit you must acquit

For All who suffer Depression

Friday Night Lights

Faster than a precipitous squall, ivy spreads and climbs the wall.  It's quarried a landlocked structure in Nepal. Through the cracks wails an ominous battlefield call. The preamble of turnacets tied tight by medics to stall as profanities ptyalise saturating gauze deep red with gall.  Hanging the jaws in fascinated appall , rubberneckers congest the receiving friends' line snaking  down the hall.  Perturbation too thick to order from short to tall, the shoulders stacked by chaos wearing a one size fits  all shawl.  So barbwire a  must install to tear  then rake  camouflaged skin off words that underneath crawl. To limit the insidious minifies the  onslaught threatening to befall. Protecting the house sometimes requires merciless law taking only two at high noon to draw.


Rescue Trucks

The flashing lights alerted us
That something was awry,
With rescue trucks preventing
Any traffic getting by.

Adjacent to the river, there were
Police upon the scene
And rubberneckers focusing
On something not routine.

My curiosity aroused,
But blocked by all the crews,
I googled the location but
There wasn’t any news.

The light turned green; we drove on through
And never found out why.
It must’ve been somebody’s,
But was not my day to die.

The Man

The firefighter lurched out of the building carrying a boy
So limp, pale, eyes shut
Black soot covered their faces
Smoke billowed from the windows behind
Hard to see through the throngs of rubberneckers
The top three floors of the tenement were ablaze
The man mentally patted himself on the back
Piteous cries arose over the commotion
Some would die for certain
Loss of life collateral damage
Water from the pumpers too little too late
One less eyesore in his city 
Time to set another fire 
And clean up the garbage

But I have too much to declare

Life and Death

Morbid curiosity,
Rubberneckers on the highway,
Expectations of disaster,
Agonizing cries of survivors.

Lost at sea,
Buried in water.
No flowers to keep,
Mourning cries of disaster.

Hurricanes and tornadoes,
Sweeping the land clear.
Leaving behind sadness, death,
And destruction for others to clean.

Burning buildings all ablaze,
The crackling of wood as it fades.
While flames grow taller,
Life appears to grow shorter.

The sadness of loss,
Pending tragedy.
The recovery from sadness,
Depends on our trust.


Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.

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