Short Dashboard Poems

Does the Holy Ghost
exist
in the walls 
of blinking light chapels?
Or in some type
of bobbing
side-to-side
dashboard symbolism?...

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After smoking up along edge of parking lot sidewalk,
I sat in car, turned AC on, started playing cards on dashboard,
Solitaire means solitude doesn't have to be a bore....

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If you were only one inch tall
You wouldn't be able to see over the dashboard,
Life would be a blur of fast moving colours,
My cat would be a monster
And you would probably sleep in a shoe.
If you were only one inch tall....

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Deaf hands knit a screaming dream.
Dream a lot and randomly create.
Create a mind-site to build upon.
Upon a stone sharpen your wits.
Wits flutter in brain-boxes.
Boxes stack the air in sealed garages.
Garages open to let a dashboard Jesus out.
Out of the tomb, daylight-time is saved....

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Sticker in a taxi
NO BEAUTIFUL WOMAN
STAYS WITH ONE MAN
Black, bold on rainbow

I shift the phrase
Like tiles in Scrabble
On the rack of my brain
Trying to spell SENSE

On the dashboard
I spell and check into
The lexicon of truth
The adage is a winnow
With windows in it

I retrieve my tiles
And note FALLACY
In the files...

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The van idles: inside its cage
she hops like a starling
from dashboard to counter.

Lady seer, shuffling the motley,
the significant and trivia.
revealing now, the stamped
and foreseeable.

A flick of her wrists
between each numbered box -
we open that tin mouth,

reach in hesitantly, for bolts out of the blue,
or just news from predicable snails....

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One afternoon in April,
behind the wheel of my beat-up and broken car,
sweating a little, 
my best friend in the passenger seat,
two large Styrofoam cups between us,
ice and juice and hopefulness:
and I cried and cried
and considered banging my head
against the steering wheel,
the windshield, the dashboard
(for dramatic effect),
all the hot plastic dusty with rage....

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Little man
with a pointed red hat
sits on the dashboard
remembering that
life is a journey
a sojourn a safari
its time to run like our children
forgetting the day
dark hair streaming behind them
dark eyes sparking happy
they chase their father at the waterline
dodging the waves
two sons 
three daughters
all sturdy all healthy
our eyes meet over heads
time for another....

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Life ain’t like the dashboard of a car
Gives no warning lights 
To tell if things are going wrong 
There are roads taken 
With no u turns 
 Keep going on till the bitter end 
Or outrun the demons in faster cars 
Run those wipers to clear the screen 
Check them tires to carry on
Put in the gear and drive 
Once again to another place 
This world here was designed 
To break hearts...

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Summer moon over Glasgow
Driving down the M8
20 degrees shows on the dashboard
Who cares if I get home late.

The ball of orange hangs in the sky
Looks bigger this time of night
Hovers above the Glesga high rise
And reflects in the River Clyde.

Though the moon begins to rise
The canvassed sky is still bright
The painted picture shows how God smiles
At half ten in the summer night....

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Written May 12, 2015 


We're singing paradise by the dashboard light
As we're lying in the backseat
Kissing in the moonlight

This isn't just a fleeting plight
For love doesn't end up on your doorstep
Every night

So huddle in the backseat
Singing songs of war and peace
Sharing dreams while we sleep

Holding onto this night
Loving her until the sunrise
For the rest of our lives...

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Sipping champagne from the hollow 
      of an avocado, on a cactus-lined
         boulevard in St. Looie

   While munching on anchovies
      slathered with salsa, the nerve
         of them calling us screwy

   On the dashboard piled high
      were half-empty cruises of gin ...
         By the time we crashed the car
         into a passing trolley car ~
   I swear I saw Busch Brewery spin...

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It floats down the stream
It coats the morning leaves
And glistens in the sun

It drifts in the wind
It sticks to the dashboard
And flaps in the breeze

It drifts from place to place
It settles in one place
And moves on before sunset

It watches us all
It watches one person
And watches another

After all these years
It settles on your doorstep
And knocks one final time
...

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I drive through the lush verdant countryside.
Spring encompasses everything I see.
Disposable memories of youth seep out of my head.
The warm sun dances on my dashboard as
the young spring wind licks my hair from the window crack.
The thought of my urgent mortality hits me like
stale cigarette smoke.
My playlist is set on random like the rest of my life...
And I drive head on into the young spring......

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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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The van idles: inside its cage
she hops like a grackle
from dashboard to counter.

Lady seer, shuffling the motley,
the significant and trivia.
Not 'all seeing', a Cassandra nevertheless,
revealing the stamped
and foreseeable.

A flick of her wrists
between each numbered box,
and we enter an unread limbo
until we open that tin mouth
reaching for bolts out of the blue,
and delayed news from snails....

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010101010101010101010101010101010 only numbers left

no walnut dashboard 010101010101010101010 no treble clef

just the breeze where once was sun 01010101010101010010

perpetual war it is no fun:

only numbers now to kiss your cheek 010101010101010 to 

grease the starlings hungry beak 01010101010101001

and when the moon hits ice cream sky 0101010101010

numbers talk for sleeping spy 010101010101010010101...

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Bespatter me Dash,
Run a short race.
Throw a little somethin
In the mix.

I hesitate an utterance 
And drop a soupcon
In parenthesis.
I want the dasher
Who plunges 
In the churn.

Signal this dot 
For longer duration,
A bit of adulteration
Under the dashboard.

Bespatter me Dash.
Listen to the sound
Of such splashing.
Let's write and hurry away
Because of a sudden onset,
A stroke, followed by a rush....

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soft roses, held in bloodless fingers,
bleed a scented redness
caressed by lusts ache
masquerading as a gentle touch

each petal  a charade
a “loves me – loves me not”
catharsis of collusion
covering its tracks

heart shaped
convenience store memories
withering dreams
melting on the dashboard

the groundhog smiles
its shadowless reflection
reveling in winters
unpredictability


John G. Lawless
©2/4/2019...

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shadows of the raindrops on my dashboard 
so beautiful, yet untouchable
I wave my hand through them
mesmerised 
unfathomable beauty 
devoid of meaning or consequence
yet thoughts can linger there
to be wiped away to see
there is sadness within me
which I cast aside 
should it be there or not, I don't know
do I tumble into it and have done with it

do I tether myself 
to rocks or clouds
for peace of mind...

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The icon on the dashboard lit up,
Giving us the sign
That pressure in the tires
Was a little out of line.

We checked them all; they looked okay
But somehow, knowing that
A problem had been noted made me
Worry 'bout a flat.

A tire center added air;
The icon disappeared.
We didn't have the situation
I'd, for nothing, feared.

The cars today are very smart
But what they do not know
Is the way my pressure rises
When the tire pressure's low....

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So this is what you companies are renting these days?
What you have right here certainly does amaze.
This hybrid car is not much bigger than a go-cart.
Now that I’m in this thing, where do I start?
You have given me a card instead of a metal key.
This car runs on both gas and electricity?
The dashboard has strange unfamiliarity.
These controls are not what I’m accustomed to see.
This car might be Japanese, but it’s Greek to me.
...

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Certain clocks obeyed
By springing forward on their own – 
The ones on the computer
Or the TV or the phone.

But my old-fashioned watch
Required a turning of the stem
And clocks around the house
Needed assistance changing them.

Our Subaru was trickiest
Though after several tries
The dashboard showed the time
On which our traveling relies.

We’re all caught up now for a while
Until the next date when
It’s time to fall behind and then
We’ll do it all again....

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