Skip to main content

By the Roadside

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #260 with much appreciation to Carrie & Shay & everyone. Just a reminder: if you have a poetry book, please drop a title in the comments. My TBR won't thank you, but I will. :) 

 

I drive by the armadillos, dead where they fell.
Sunlight is so heavy it folds into damp shimmers.
All the roads are widening, dispersing the ditches,
Grinding out parking lots, killing slow steps.

I speed up; crisp winter in the passenger seat.
We will arrive at the store soon; I will drag her
Chill, into the store. Breathe for both of us.

Brightness distorts the lots, now grown gigantic.
Roads need blood, the state needs the kills.
We will make it through barriers if we wear them:
Dead armadillos, caliche dust, gunmetal sunshine.



Comments

  1. Carrie Van HornMay 20, 2023 at 7:38 AM

    It does feel as thought pavement is taking over the greenery and nature for sure. This is absolutely lovely Chrissa and deeply thought provoking. Thank you so much for being a core creator of the Muse itself and for all the amazing poetry you have shared here!

    ReplyDelete
  2. FireblossomMay 20, 2023 at 11:46 AM

    This is so bright it hurts my eyes as well it should. Thanks back to you, Chrissa, always a shining light at the Muse.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TruedessaMay 20, 2023 at 6:25 PM

    The sunlight seems blinding and climate is changing - winter in the passenger seat going for
    ride to who knows where?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sherry Blue SkyMay 21, 2023 at 9:20 AM

    Wonderfully written. I especially admire those closing lines.

    ReplyDelete
  5. HelenMay 21, 2023 at 11:45 AM

    This is all manner of amazing .. the third stanza stopped me in my (road)tracks.

    ReplyDelete
  6. qbitMay 21, 2023 at 11:55 AM

    That is fantastic. Taut, merciless. “Roads need blood, the state needs the kills.” Outstanding.

    ReplyDelete
  7. JimMay 21, 2023 at 9:37 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  8. JimMay 21, 2023 at 9:45 PM

    I like this Chrissa. My line is "Roads need blood, the state needs the kills" claimed because i don't know why, just right for asking "Why?" The buzzards will gather, the blood will be minimum, and the state had better count fast. I haven't seen an Armadillo for several years now, dead or live. The Mama and Babies used to cross our lawns for their outings. That was when we lived south of Houston, now we've been gone 23 years ( to Montgomery and recently Katy, other sides from Friendswood) that's without seeing even one, dead or alive.
    ..

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turn Away

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse , for #193. Turn away, like the moon, listening... Listening to the planet that rumbles with a hundred million slaps. All the feet, all the rockets, all the  pistons in the cars on the asphalt over the chasm where the veins run deep, blue in sunlight, black at night. Running over the chasm.  Once or twice they ran to you. Once or twice they ran by. Greetings and salutations. The sky is an entertaining shade of concrete yellow as the rain promised earlier in the week makes good on its arrival. It's a disturbing bright sallow sky, the kind of sky that puts you in mind of old movies and degraded film stock and the pops and crackles incidental to the main story.  Several years ago I made a resolution to journal more and last year I came across a video that suggested I actually re-read those journals, at least those of the previous year, at the beginning of each new year. Technically, I have kept the journal resolution, making daily notes in...
15 comments
Read more

The Soul and The Spine

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #195 . Come and share! When it blew out the candle, It began to speak, voice low,  eyes dimmer than flame. Jenn believed, once upon a childhood (she's still there... but it's waning), it inhaled fire. Spines, tonight. Gears ladder bones and metal and plastic, all that lived, rungs to heaven. Heaven is a level of space where you can't breathe  so they used to send the dead. When the flame goes, it takes our memories with it. But not bot files. Maybe it believes  she'll sleep easier if bots go breathless, too. It continues murmuring and she pretends she's hearing a confession in a box Like the song her mother plays when the dark stretches  between signals We can handle shocks. She can handle the dark, the small  not-flame of its eyes. It's finally winter!! Which means bitmapped frost on the roofs, cold mornings, and a table full of succulents that are pretty much glaring at me because the kitchen window isn't the same as full su...
14 comments
Read more

A Single (Terrible) Poem

 I did not buy the poetry book whose sample Was page after page of essay and praise. I'm not following the trumpets. Today I follow the ringers-- Huzzah and call out the streets! Lift your arm, swing the bell; Call out the quiet, call out the neat Call out the loud, call out the bold Call out the wrong, call out the wise We remember the bells We shiver the skies.    This isn't about...anything. It's not about nothing. It should go without saying that a poem shouldn't need an essay or a textbook to be what it is. And I'm not sure why, with a stack of poetry at hand to be read, one silly Kindle sample (and writer's block and anxiety and...) would push my buttons so badly. But seriously. Where is my parody book full of fake blurbs that runs for 50 pages and ends with a single (terrible) poem?  -- Chrissa
11 comments
Read more