Race Car
The driver is one with the machine.
Every turn on asphalt would be tires burning.
A V8 with horse power, the car flies down the road.
Turn up the music and push the pedal to the floor.
Need for speed while the tires grip every turn.
What a rush to fly by while the oil burns.
This is the life of a man in a locomotive.
With torque the gears turn crank down shift.
Racing down the speedway on a straight away.
Man and machine compete to win the race.
Just one more lap through the trees down the road.
The checkered flag is just a mile to go.
Drifting around the corner.
Why do race car drivers drink milk when it’s over?
Under the sun the engine is on fire.
Pass by all the slow pokes with power.
Just like a spark plug the lightning keeps striking.
Like a racehorse, it charges to keep on fighting.
Driving fast is like having the feeling of being free.
Just you and your car, this is the way it has to be.
They never made Charlie work for anything, no doubt.
He never did a chore or helped his parents out.
When he reached sixteen, he wanted a Porsche.
They gave him one the day his mom got a dishwasher, a Borsche.
Charlie rode it around faster than a speedway racecar.
Thought he was all that and more, a spoilt basketball star.
Wrecked it in a week, and complained he wanted another.
Let’s not spoil our other boys, suggested Charley’s mother.
Premiered at Midland Motor Speedway, Odessa, TX – 6/26/1998
ACT 1
Das Lied für Alma
Still Life Instrumental
First Nights
Pain Hurts
Violet
Dancing with the Blues
The Reckoning
No One’s Going Home
ACT 2
Brickyard Informal
Beneath the Wheel
Eyes of a Miner
Here She Was
Halfway to My Knees
The Last Time We Made Love
ACT 3
I Quit
Never Be Too Far Away
Yesterday’s Coffee
Stale Green Light
not a speedway
And yet they are racing
at a hundred miles or more
Down Interstate 635 in Kansas City
I hear them way before I realize what they are
Two race cars. One orange and green
The other purple and black, low and fast.
They are racing on both sides of me.
Sounding like whirring humming bees.
They tear past
I figure they will kill someone without dog ears
Tail lights in three lanes light up
I slow down, expecting to see body parts.
*****I've decided to repost some older poems and provide some background and poetics, or my mindset of why I wrote these poems or perhaps what inspired me to write some of them. Many of these older poems were overlooked or were lost in the speedway of poetry submissions here. For new Soupers or new readers it might be a welcomed 'new' read as well, or long time Supers who missed some of these works*****
Moving Forward
People are judged by their past,
No matter how clean they may be now.
People toss out the new you,
And focus on the old now.
Like back in '06
When you were a drug addict.
You went to rehab '06,
And have been sober ever since.
It's a new day,
the old has passed away.
Falling off like loose chains
Now's my chance to get away.
The old has passed away
And new adventures
are headed my way.
Coming around the corner
You can catch it on the speedway.
No longer dwell on your past,
Instead move forward
And stay on track.
Fear will no longer hold you back.
Keep moving forward,
Life is like a roller coaster;
And you don't know
when it's going to stop.
But when it stops
Your time is up.
Rare beauty,
blue diamond,
your smile burns a hole through the seams of my soul,
Isaac Newton was wrong,
This love will never descend,
eye contact,
I think an atom split,
B
O
O
M
nobody else in the world matters,
voluptuous curves,
dangerous if you are not careful,
Talladega Speedway cover girl,
Staring into your eyes is indescribable,
like a Michael Jordan dunk in mid air,
time briefly pauses,
through the wormhole,
hair flowing like the Nigerian River,
never ending,
This love is never ending girl,
Agape,
I think you were sent from the heavens.
here is my soul speaking softly
you take it in, and resolution warms the union
we converse like a lazy sunday revisited
we take a trip by becoming invisible
the trip we take is underwater in thought and contentment
the concoction we make is soothing and rehabilitating
we converse lika a lazy sunday revisited
we take a trip by becoming invisible
here are your elements forming a bond that is truly cationic
i take it in, and the mass confusion permanently evaporates
we converse like a lazy sunday revisited
we take a trip by becoming invisible
the attractions we see are revolving but welcoming
the natural scenes experienced inspres and strengthens the root of our bond
we converse like a lazy sunday revisited
we take a trip by becoming invisible
Every time you put that bottle to your lips
I think of what might happen,
but i don't wanna fight with you
and you have no clue how i feel
but its not a big deal
only that i could loose you,
but you refuse to listen to what i say
and you drive on those roads like its a speedway
at any second something could happen
it frightens me,
the thought of losing you,
you just don't understand
things like this are never planned.
Sitting in a cloak of black conservatism:
I feel my hands,
oily on the desk like shortening in
slate gray cookie pans,
the speedway inside forcing the absence of
reabsorption,
And my thoughts,
so flippant to implore
if a man with a chartreuse neck tie
can see the long wet streaks
across the cherry plane.
He speaks,
a sequence of interrogatives
common to the bored walls
of serious conference,
evoking tone inflection
in the pattern of polite.
Darest I mention truth?
I am your whore;
infect me with smug integrity,
smack me with false prophet leadership,
just leave some crisp bills
on the nightstand, sugar.
Yet my voice models his wavelength,
relaying back the catchy tired language
of one hit wonders;
eyes brighten,
hands extend
from the man who owns a chartreuse tie.
Sigh.
Still,
complacency
awards a loaf of Wonder bread,
and a two bedroom lower.