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Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Skid Marks on the Highway

My compulsion
as I drive on the highway
is watching
the black skid marks
on the road ahead of me.

I fight the absent-minded
impulse
to follow their aberrant
trajectory.

Hypnotized,
my eyes follow
their smooth arcs
and abrupt sooty ends,
and I wonder
what was the driver thinking
just before
it
happened.

Some trail
off the road
in tight,
unpredictable curves,
while others
fade gracefully
suggesting
a narrow escape,

and others still
lead
nihilistically,
willfully
into the cement
guard rails.

Scared back
into the moment
I intentionally
loosen my grip,

as I keep my eyes
fixed straight ahead

ignoring
all the wrong moves
I have been
fortunate thus far
not to make.

12 comments:

  1. I really remember those skidmarks... they are so less common here in Sweden, but I always wondered why they were there... they seem so frequent so they can hardly be fatal all of them

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  2. I really get this. I have a poem about being preoccupied with pulling the emergency brake while driving fast. I promise not to do it in real life!

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  3. Interesting, how one can get hypnotized, while driving long stretches on highways, and the disastrous effects, it can have upon us. I hope, your good fortune continues, for a very long time, Buddah, on your local highways.

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  4. Anonymous3:01 PM

    Skid marks. What a contemplative look.

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  5. Yes, scary to contemplate. And long drives can by hypnotic, which is dangerous. This is excellently described, and I'm glad the danger was avoided.

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  6. I've noticed them before but never been drawn to them. They do tell a scary story

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  7. Anonymous1:38 AM

    Poems they are, rashtags of destiny. These days I fret more the skidmarks in my BVDs.

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  8. Wow! this is such a profound observation, and metaphor for life.

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  9. Where I live, the young rednecks screech their monster trucks in circles that burn marks in the pavement, circle upon circle. Unbelievable tire abuse, not to mention dangerous. I especially like your closing stanza..........I too am grateful for some of the shenanigans I have managed to avoid.

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  10. I really like the bigger truths conveyed in this piece. To me at least, I feel like it is a warning not to be hypnotized by stories of disasters to the point the become omens instead of cautionary tales.

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  11. Almost every black mark I see while driving sets my imagination off. You hit it right.
    Back when I was young, not so often now, my blacks marks were the beginning of excitement, not the end. I still love to smoke the tires and make rubber when auto transmission shifts into second gear. I drive a Ford Mustang.
    ..

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  12. Those skid marks are cautionary tales. So well-observed.

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