car
auto
pick-up truck
rearview mirror
headlights, taillights
steering wheel
front bumper
seat belts
wheels
Even though you didn’t intend it,
Your words were bullets,
That tore right through me,
Putting holes in my heart.
You’ll be 49 miles deep into Georgia,
But still light years away from me,
I’m back to being alone,
But I don’t want to be.
I thought I finally had you,
But now I watch you leave,
Nothing but a pair of tire tracks,
And fading taillights.
As you dropped the ball,
Blood starts to flow,
You still hold the smoking gun,
That blew a hole in my heart.
i'd just come in and made a cup of tea.
ten minutes later, i went to admire my work by the front window
that's when i saw him
he'd already made a start
he had pulled up the windscreen wipers
sponge and bowl full of bubbly water
fast-paced doesn't do it justice
washing, with mischief and energy
magnificently grotesque; a cunning, vacant expression
did i trigger this?
is this a coincidence?
i wanted to go and ask him
i went through the imagined conversation
but i couldn't do it
and i watched him groom the taillights
my wife hadn't noticed how clean our car was
i sulked at dinner, eating my
emotionally abused peas
White Cars Haunt
My dreams awake in wasteful
Flights fantastic blight
Each headlight flares
Restless into the outer fields of memory
The oppressive, hot, humid twilight
Passing out of my sight
They haunt my wakening eyes
Along the way, hollow roads of soul
Down endless maps of history
The endless engines thumm
An echo old still lasts, sitting
White cars are empty and cold
Bloody taillights trace each past
Black rubber burns distant futures
White cars sit idle, haunting
Engines' hot air rises to
Meet my blurry vision of yesterday
As white cars haunt
Passing me on the left and then the right
Ghostly in the pale moonlight
In a parking lot, idling, hot
As neon bars pop and flicker
Feel the rot of endless horizons
White white cars travel, burning
Into the enigmatic magnetic night…
You're too far gone for me to step in.
I've given you my blood and precious time.
Society has given you dozens of chances.
Still, you drain the system dry.
You're a freight train off track.
Straight into the solar plexus of civilization.
You've managed to turn the iridescence of
love, loyalty, friendship
into the opaqueness of deception and decadence.
Here you are, a light-year beyond your prime.
Dark deceiver scrounging for dimes.
A bona fide bipedal parasite.
Angelic looks once gave you haven- free rides.
Now you've run out of bridges-shallow charisma exposed.
This haven is overgrown with thorn and briar.
The free ride is nothing but taillights in the mist.
You've inherited nothing but red eyes and dead ends.
Riding on a highway,
As the cars go streaming by,
I notice varied brands and styles
I can’t identify.
To me, they mostly look the same,
The SUV’s and such,
With different shapes of taillights
Which don’t really matter much.
The vehicles are mostly dark,
Though quite a few are white
And sometimes there’s a burgundy
Or red that one can sight.
Yet once in a great while,
There’s a sports car or a jeep
In a neon green or orange
To which every eye will leap.
That attention’s what the owners
Wanted, like a little spark,
But it sure must come in handy
When in crowded lots they park.
I kept the inner workings,
kept the plastic furniture
while it cracked
into multidimensional bones.
I kept (in part),
the whir of its mirroring mind.
Of course, the viewer has dimmed out
nothing in the camera fully develops,
yet images emerge.
I can catch the blurry taillights of stars,
find my way through a long-burnt corn field,
photograph photographs
yet to be imaged.
I came to her one night
like she came to me
softly and with a whisper
she said she had
a three-year-old daughter
at home.
The dining porch was a stage
where we lost ourselves in song
the backdrop blue and red neon lights
outside a one-way street
streaked with taillights.
Time and time she’d
go upstairs where others dance,
but she kept coming back to me.
We held hands; warmth of her touch
flowed into me. She watched and cheered
when it was my turn to sing.
I did the same for her,
a spell shared by friends
as the night glistened a dream.
taillights shine brightly
as motorcycle stops quick
deer crosses the road
Suburban waste stretches beyond and far away
Languishes under the hot hazy sun
Seasons reap
Memories run
Remembering things better left unseen
Memories reel in the theater on the mind
Things fragmented in frame
Of mental photographs
Faded edges frail
brittle fluttering
Summer rainstorm run the horizons
Lightning lances the rain
Fall is coming, frost is in the eves
Pumpkins gleaming a thrilling sight
Images crystalize by chilly winter nights
Summer comes to burn away the sight
Spring color runs, fades
Autumn rights delays dies
in the passing taillights
Suburban boulevard’s lost
in fog shrouded waste…
Splash of neon light.
Neon glass shatters.
A pale face looms out of the gloom.
It shimmers into the night
Smash of an engine's steel,
A flash of sharp car headlights.
Black eyes stare wide
Crash goes the ruby taillights, sparkling.
The crunch of black ice!
A Machine in death throes
Winter is here at last.
Milky slim hands grasp...
Sharp edges of ruined steal, cut!
Mechanical auto-parts, tires, chrome, teeth n bones!
Something ashen; a figure stands there...
Under a spinning bright golden arc, sparks!
If humanity is to blame?
Human twisted forms fade away.
We all go blind in the burning flame.
As the car comes to a screaming, screeching silent halt!
Neon shatters into the night.
Flares, like stars drift down.
…faces loom out of the nightmares gloom!
Black Ice breaks,
Auto-parts and mechanical hearts;
Cascades, Resonates, Detonates
Broken Neon; a coming doom.
Here I sit...
Behind steering wheel.
My back is numb
My head reels.
Cars pass me left and right
Ribbons of crimson taillights
Leave traces behind my eye
Deep in my mind.
Speeding headlong into the deep
Blue indigo night.
I clench the wheel with white fingers...
Close at hand...
In mind like cob webs in dark tombs.
Cars shoot by as if hell's at their heels.
Way can I not go faster?
A way from my memories in clouded Rooms,
Racing into the receding horizon.
Where tomorrow's rest.
Not caring...
Not daring...
To look behind
Fearing what I might Find
Feeling the ribbons that bind…
Seeing it’s dim light
I feel relieved
The sun is too strong
The moon is too far away
The stars are too glittering
The headlights are too blazing
The taillights make me too emotional
The street lamps are too objective
The lights from the office buildings are too oppressive
The room light is too broad
The desk lamp is too direct
The flashlight is too tense
and
The fireworks are too grandiose....
But a firefly
is a reminder
It's OK to show a modest light
In the darkness, then,
We see you
We know you,
and you remind us
We are also the light
Ribbons of silver light
Crimson in amber strings drift ahead of me
Red, Gold, and Green sway absently
As the engine hums into the night
Passing the shop windows of industry
People bustling along the lane
Heads down headed home
From the daily toil
From arcane factories
Or crunch numbers of finance
Horizon a dying ember
Heading into the night
Blinded by silver ribbons
of light and crimson taillights
The wind tumble after me…
I kept its funnel-cloud eyes.
I kept the inner workings.
Kept the plastic furniture
while it cracked
into multidimensional bones.
I kept the whir of its mirroring mind.
A shutter undrapes shadows.
A shabby couch on a dusty porch,
still plays bluegrass though
a fish-eye lens.
Dancers in Beijing seep
out of digital skins.
Of course the viewer dims,
nothing in the camera fully develops,
yet images emerge.
I can now catch the blurry taillights of stars,
find my way through a long burnt corn-maze,
photograph photographs
yet to be imaged.
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