Car Poems
Saturday At The Canal
by Gary Soto
I was hoping to be happy by seventeen.
School was a sharp check mark in the roll book,
An obnoxious tuba playing at noon because our team
Was going to win at night. The teachers were
Too close to dying to understand. The hallways
Stank of poor grades and unwashed hair. Thus,
A friend and I sat watching the water on Saturday,
Neither of us talking much, just warming ourselves
By hurling large rocks at the dusty ground
And feeling awful because San Francisco was a postcard
......
The City Planners
by Margaret Atwood
Cruising these residential Sunday
streets in dry August sunlight:
what offends us is
the sanities:
the houses in pedantic rows, the planted
sanitary trees, assert
levelness of surface like a rebuke
to the dent in our car door.
No shouting here, or
shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt
......
Mama, Come Back
by Nellie Wong
Mama, come back.
Why did you leave
now that I am learning you?
The landlady next door
how she apologizes
for my rough brown skin
to her tenant from Hong Kong
as if I were her daughter,
as if she were you.
......
Still
by Wislawa Szymborska
In sealed box cars travel
names across the land,
and how far they will travel so,
and will they ever get out,
don't ask, I won't say, I don't know.
The name Nathan strikes fist against wall,
the name Isaac, demented, sings,
the name Sarah calls out for water for
the name Aaron that's dying of thirst.
......
A Child's Garden
by Rudyard Kipling
R. L. Stevenson
Now there is nothing wrong with me
Except -- I think it's called T.B.
And that is why I have to lay
Out in the garden all the day.
Our garden is not very wide
And cars go by on either side,
And make an angry-hooty noise
That rather startles little boys.
......
Trailblazer
by Evelyn Judy Buehler
I was a classic 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air, in mint condition, admiral and white.
My owner had other beautiful, classic cars, like stars sparkling into twilight.
My owner loved his old cars, saying 'they don't make them like they used to;'
And I enjoyed getting out upon the open road, to show him what I could do.
My fellow cars and I saw lots of sunny days, in bliss freedom of the flowers,
Traveling the length and breadth of this land, in the clasp of jeweled hours.
Flighty friends and I recalled 'good old days,' in rosy sunset times of finally,
......
Sestina with Six Random Words
by Alexander Wolff
I was bragging to my friend Hadleigh that I slept with a model
named Jesse. As I drove back home, the insurance
company called, telling me I was an uninsured motorist.
It didn’t surprise me, for I had pledged
to stop using insurance, believing it a scam designed
by Sam. Although, this was only the first in the series
of events that night. It was late October — the start of the World Series.
On the radio, Hendrick’s Autos flaunted their makes and models.
Dusk danced across the sky, decaying, as if it were a prismatic design
......
Your Car Sucks!
by Randy Johnson
You've designed a new electric car and it's being built on the assembly line.
You've been pestering me to buy one but I never will, one of your cars will never be mine.
You want me to buy one but I'm going to pass.
Your car sucks and you can shove it up your ass.
It takes fourteen hours to charge it and it can only be driven for thirty minutes.
Your car is a joke and when it comes to one of them, you'll never see me in it.
If I couldn't design a better car than yours, I'd give up and quit.
I will never buy one of your cars because they are pieces of shit.
At Night
by Sara Teasdale
We are apart; the city grows quiet between us,
She hushes herself, for midnight makes heavy her eyes,
The tangle of traffic is ended, the cars are empty,
Five streets divide us, and on them the moonlight lies.
Oh are you asleep, or lying awake, my lover?
Open your dreams to my love and your heart to my words.
I send you my thoughts--the air between us is laden,
My thoughts fly in at your window, a flock of wild birds.
In The Train
by Sara Teasdale
Fields beneath a quilt of snow
From which the rocks and stubble sleep,
And in the west a shy white star
That shivers as it wakes from deep.
The restless rumble of the train,
The drowsy people in the car,
Steel blue twilight in the world,
And in my heart a timid star.
