Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Traveling a one way street
with headlights ahead.
A sudden urge to hit the brakes;
but no
fear is best dealt with head on.

Struggling up
a down hill slope
grease on the
wheels won't help.

A path marked with white lines
and invisible yellow barriers; some broken.
Only so much can be seen
as silver threads above
warn of the headlights ahead.

Glowing yellow diamonds.
Yellow stripped black squares.
Red hexagons.
Yellow flags.

The path is revealed only so far.
Signs warning, telling, directing, forbidding.
Travel the wrong side of the street;
run out of fluid,
slam into the headlights ahead.

March 14, 2003

Ah me,

well,

try this...

slip behind the wheel

shut your eyes

and just peel peel on outta here

on winged words

they'll rescue you every time

place your feet on solid ground

until the next time

that's what I do

I have a tendency to throttle down dead end streets...

one ways will kill ya

the vision:
time spent on the yellow brick road........

hammer hammer
west bound in the east bound lanes
ease off the throttle

relax
white knucle death grip on the wheel don't help.

I like this one a lot deb. I have the feeling I been there done that. You know head lights coming at you on the interstate. Trying to hang onto a woman when she needed to move on. Stuff like that.

I have always felt that facing my fears head on was best.
I mean physical fear, fear of heights, fear of oneself (that is a new one for me.)
Nothing to do with your poem, just the dots in my mind, and I been awake so long they are starting to look like polka dots.

Thanks for the poem.

Yes mousey they can kill ya, especially when you don't watch the road signs.
Wireman--hum interesting thought.

And Truck, when I looked this one up I had not thought of the truck driver, but you know the inspiration kind of fits. This was inspired while driving to work one night. I tend to get blinded by oncoming headlights, and there are many curves between where I live and where I work. By watching the power lines above on those curves they would warn of oncoming cars so I could dim my lights, look to the side of the road, and get off the yellow line which I tend to ride because they show up better then the white ones when light hits them in the dark.

Thanks for the read folks.

love lots
Deb.

dog gone it Deb
It was like that Freud quote about poets being there first. I was out on Interstate 10 in phar lepht Texas. I was sitting at a dead stop in the east bound. About four feet in front of me was a big oldsmobile pointed west. Frail old woman at the wheel petrified. Eerie calm as I waited for the gasoline tanker that was behind me to catch up in a ball of flame and death. Had to get her turned around quick. The good Shepard was with me.

Don't know why poetry opens me up like this. The images, it is an eerie uncanny experience to see the other side of those yellow reflectors showing red. Powerfull images
bravo deb
done rambling I hope.

Excellent extended metaphor!

I'm a big fan of road metaphors. I used to write them myself quite often. Road signs.. yield, stop... lights... yellow green red... curves & curbs... such vivid imagery to use to relay stuff that goes on inside of us...

perfect for a glimpse at the human condition.

Well done.. glad you found it... Waving to you from across the median strip... I'm going the other direction trying to find what I left behind.

love

"Travel the wrong side of the street;
run out of fluid,
slam into the headlights ahead."

"hammer hammer
west bound in the east bound lanes
ease off the throttle"

and then, what if you were headed toward each other--both moving into the opposite lane so that the end result was a swoosh of wind on the right-hand side? fast and slow and blurred and beautiful.

I think I would suggest a U-turn, just to be sure.

Love lots

lights in the air
desert at night
I thought it was a ufo or something like it
But it was a little old lady in an oldsmobile
up on a hill coming down the exit ramp
as I got closer I slowed and slowed
flashed my lights
blew the air horn
put the four way hazard lights on
she kept coming down the exit ramp
I slowed and slowed she kept coming
I flashed my lights and blew my horn
she slowed down
I slowed down
I stopped
she stopped
so we were parked on the interstate
nose to nose
There was no traffic coming
but it was just a matter
of time
until something came along
Maybe a gasolene tanker.

She was frozen at the wheel
I knocked on her drivers side window
she rolled it down about a half inch and said
"I am old"
And I said, "Me too but I would like to get a little bit older.
I walked along side her while she made a uturn and went back up the exit

Not much of a poem here Deb.
But it amazed me how calm I was
I am normaly a very hysterical kind of guy
except when something bad happens
I get so calm
Like thinking with my spinal chord
a feeling of a prescence, the hero with a thousand faces
this spirit or light within
I use trucker talk "the good lord was with me"
Be he myth or metaphor
Man or God

Tonight insanity surrounds me
it runs in my family
I do not know if I can help anymore
I want to run from it
Not sure if I can help her anymore
Think about my baby sister sometimes if you would please
I think it helps when people keep you in their thoughts

sorry about the irrelevant off topic stuff about my siter deb, I just can't bring myself to delete it.

other--both moving into the opposite lane so that the end result was a swoosh of wind on the right-hand side? fast and slow and blurred and beautiful.

Pilots have told me that flying is hours and hours of monotony interupted by moments of ...
Not unlike trucking

Yes I have had that blurred beautiful swosh of wind, but on the left side not the right. Coming at me like white pill in the right hand lane, I dove for the shoulder he blurred on by in a wosh.

Nice Images,joel I could have never said it that well, you poets make me sick

It is not irrelevant if it means something to you truck. And yes it is a good thing to keep people in your thoughts, kind of keeps them alive in our hearts.

Think I know that overwhelming calm you speak of. When I spun my car in a 360 in the middle of 31w I was calm until I realized there could have been other cars coming toward me. I wound up in the ditch on the other side of the highway facing back the direction I had come from. It didn't hit me what could have happened until the police car pulled up and asked if I was o.k. That's when I almost lost it. Weird hu?