Short Billboards Poems

trying hard to measure up to airbrushed perfection on billboards



AP: 2nd place 2020

Posted on June 11, 2019...

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The fences and billboards
  disappear in the sanctum

As theory is abandoned
  —and true knowledge takes hold

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2019)...

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Everywhere I look I see words.
In Magazines
In newspapers
On Billboards
Words are in books
Words are in grocery stores
Words are in malls and even parks 
Words surround me
Day in and day out...

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What if all the words you ever said,
Were made into billboards
That surrounded you and filled you with dread?
What if all the words you ever said,
Were made into advertisements for all to see,
Would you feel filled with glee or would you rather be dead?...

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Clock is ticking
I've been thinking,
So many times,
How many truths turned into lies,

On T.V,
On the phone,
On Craigslist,
On billboards coming home,

People don't want the truth,
They'll back the lie,
Pays more to go back to work,
Than to watch the big guys die...

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I followed your success,
I heard all of your music, and you sang them great,
what progress,

Names on billboards,
Bet men waiting to be your date
Awards,

What? Who?
That's not me, wait --
you?

I followed your success,
Bet men waiting to be your date
you?...

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Billboards and bumper stickers
as we drive down the highway
little pieces of culture
drifting all along the way;
colors, messages, pictures
so many things we see
so few that we remember
billboards and bumper stickers
covered frequently
with new messages to be discovered...

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a less than perfect messiah talks a 
little nonsense out the side of his mouth.

" i was chosen at the wrong time"

 or so the sunburst washed sign read.

  so very tall and thin the prophets of 
propaganda who walk through the city 
with 
legs of aluminum and mouths of paper....

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A prayer is like seduction to your soul
Your church is the glamour the world bestowals
Your bible is the flashy neon lights and billboards
Your truth is the multiplicity of greedy
Your salvation is fruition of materialism
Your retribution is its finitude and lost satiety
Heaven becomes invisible through the eye of a needle...

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Nation building

The blond warrior on billboards
of yore has lost relevance 
Germany is a tanned nation.
The language is simpler; if 
not Grammarly correct.
They sit in last chance saloon 
the old guard feels bitter
wearing overcoats and fur hats
Mercedes is no longer produced
production coast.
The frostbitten nation arises
the transformation is complete....

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He never made retirement—
palmed sallow watch.

Years bled bloodless,
stooped obliquely
in steel mills.

Mother said
he was tired—
so tired
as he drank
last days in liquid slurs.

The mill closed
after his death—
now both rustle bones,
remember russet dreams
of molten metals
faint as old billboards
whispering what once was
but never was
in rust-washed wind....

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Refrigerated white clad knight
A thousand horses pull
With their might, prancing 'pon the road
Cargo hull loaded full

Up and down the expressway roam
See vehicles and roads
Rarely getting to visit wife
And place of home's abode

Same billboards everyday stored in
Memory~packed away
Loners tucked in but need escape
Complex puzzle at play  

Inspired by a tractor/trailer truck
on the expressway........

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Busy shopping mall parking lots
Car doors opening and closing
Words flashing on digital billboards
A screech, a honk, some belligerent
Cursing bastard, a car alarm blaring
The noisy comings and goings
Of folks numb to the chaos
Rows upon rows of pollutants
Oil-stained pavement
Loose change on the dashboard
Keys left in the ignition
The engine still idling
Me, in the driver’s seat pondering it all...

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I've heard of the Circus Of The Damned;
By all accounts the rumors are true;
The graffiti makes it seem so grande;

Filled with copper and turquoise blue 
billboards have you longing to attend;
In the French Quarter stories continue;

St. Louis boasts a fantasy alive and well;
Vampires perform in this fiendish hub,
gothic striptease mixed with a carnival;

More intense energy than any club,
blood will surely soak your ticket stub....

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The engins running the road is calling out for me,
and my heart is sayin, 
" let's get away from the beatin' and the fightin' and whats all this yellin' 
about?? let's get to a place where we know we're aloud."

I wont be the face on the milk carton I wont be forgotten about.
I'll be on billboards I'll be in magazines
I'll be loved 
I'll be taken care
And that's all that's matters to me,
 cause then i will know i am free.

Deborah Olson Gotti...

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The brisk wind whistles from treetops
The snow crunches underneath my feet
Another storm will be on the way
The weather doesn’t skip a beat

The sun glows on the hillside
Billboards of shadows create games to play
The squirrels try to steal all the food
The birds keep trying, then fly away

I wonder how they tolerate this cold
I haven’t seen any of their homes yet
But mine has become one of them
On this, I can certainly bet!

Heidi Sands

1/26/22...

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Papers, Billboards, Cinema Screen 
Headlines, Images, Magazines 
Pictures, Quotes, Caricatures and parts
Welder, Allen, Clooney and Marx.
Eastwood, Tracey, Pitt and Dean
Just a few of the best I’ve seen
Fonda, Newman, Guinness and Wayne, O.M.G
Citizen Cane
Vertigo, Psycho, Singing in the rain,
Curtis, Lemmon, Redford and Plummer
What did you do hay last summer?
So many greats this is just a fraction
Shush be quiet 
Lights, Camera, Action

Written by M. BURTON...

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the moon lays buried
where solitude expands
I'm gazing at lit billboards
and the broken lines on this blacktop
that lead away from the past

I'm longing for the morning
to rise upon the hills
I can't get the speed I need
but I'm still shifting gears
I'm watching for the sunrise
and blue sky days ahead

I sink with the darkness
I rise with each new sun
knowing when this day is over
the pivotal point is within reach
what grows smaller behind
is all that I leave...

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