speed limit signs full of bullet holes w/ spoke(n)

I don't want to leave you to rear-views

my chest is 454
for hair in your eyes at 65
you crack smiles like
river beds in the summer

and somewhere in the desert
the stars are up
and pedals are down headed east
to get a rise from a sun dress north of knees

she sees what I'm driving at

all thumbs and no maps
anywhere but back the way we came from
we've traveled too far into this turn-for-the-worse
to lift from the wreckage and call for innocence
or a taxi

it's an accident waiting to happen, you and I blue as sky
and eventually we'll turn black
with our broken headlights, our mouths like ditches
to fall asleep in

nothing but another round-about with no way out
let's cut the ties like slashed tires
and let out violent breaths, to cascade

across an empty back road and lose control
of a reinvented wheel

until we're a new open wound ready to heal
our head(s) on collision
and cold shoulders filled with the parts
driven to never make destinations

we've been reduced to no-rest stop patrons

on hot vinyl in empty diners, hearts starved like last legs
running on the fumes of break shoes

motors killed left to play in the traffic
of scenic routes turned skid marks
trying to back track past having ever
tread on each other

wishing after every right turn there was something left;
a better life than one of scrap-parts and false starts,
an Oldsmobile laid to rest in a back-country
junkyard ‘cause there was no place
to drive home to

from gas stations to cheap motels,
cold words and rental cars

when we couldn’t follow directions with fog lights
shorter than foresight & called it quits at
crossroads of uncertainty and us

______

I don’t want to leave you in the dust

your hair like five am ruin
chest an aching engine’s purr
breaking down on the side of the road less traveled

I'm a day late, sorry a little busy at the moment preparing for my return to college. lol Anyway, this was great... packed full of imagery and metaphors with a good few clever wordplays thrown in for good measure. Hmm, I've never actually read a full length poem by you Mantra and to be honest I thought haiku was your strong point but I retract that statement after reading this, Spoken came nice also though. Stand out lines for me were; The whole of the first stanza, liked the speed references, slash tires like these ties and head(s) on collision. I thought at a few points the wording came across a little awkward, (or maybe it's just how I read it) but this was probably the best collaboration I've read in a minute. Well done guys, this really doesn't deserve to be slept on like this. Anyway nominating this for HoF... Good job to both.

Well done!!

The whole concept of driving and / keeping the relationship was a big hit. I enjoy reads that aren't just one dimensional and this was it. The metaphor was dense. I really liked this;

Quote:

---

all thumbs and no maps
anywhere but back the way we came from
we've traveled too far into this turn-for-the-worse
to lift from the wreckage and call for innocence
or a taxi

---

.

There are more quotable and references that made this great. The blend of imagery was just the cherry on top. I Certainly enjoyed this and it's great to see some of the senior writers coming in and dropping a dwell.

Wow...this was dope.

RTF!

hahaha, just kidddding.

The automobile/road trip metaphor was excellently executed here. The imagery was outstanding from the moment I read the summer river bed/smiles moment.

Scratch that...it was poppin from the hair in her eyes at 65 moment. I blew my bangs out of my eyes when I read that...dope.

This poem was emotionally packed and reinforced with very visual imagery and your consistent "word bank" realllly lent itself towards metaphorical strength.

This is the first poem I've peeped at RB...

I will be hanging out in here more.

Ill. The two of you work well together. Concept poems and pieces that rely so heavily on extended metaphor are often hit or miss for me - and this was definitely a hit. The consistent driving / road references were carried through the entire piece and yet they were used in a way that didn't make it seem corny or overdone. I can see Mantra's signature ability to intelligently tie a metaphor to emotion and paired with the visual depth I'm used to seeing from spoken... the piece definitely played to each of your strengths.

Favorite lines:

"you crack smiles like
river beds in the summer"

"it's an accident waiting to happen, you and I blue as sky
and eventually we'll turn black
with our broken headlights, our mouths like ditches
to fall asleep in"

and all of this because I couldn't decide where to stop quoting:

"on hot vinyl in empty diners, hearts starved like last legs
running on the fumes of break shoes

motors killed left to play in the traffic
of scenic routes turned skid marks
trying to back track past having ever
tread on each other

wishing after every right turn there was something left;
a better life than one of scrap-parts and false starts,
an Oldsmobile laid to rest in a back-country
junkyard ‘cause there was no place
to drive home to

from gas stations to cheap motels,
cold words and rental cars

when we couldn’t follow directions with fog lights
shorter than foresight & called it quits at
crossroads of uncertainty and us"

A crash course in love and all those forks in the roads and blow outs and accidents that come with it... trying not to get lost or end up as some old shell of a relationship cast off. Lines throughout resonated for different reasons and with different parts of where I've been... and I always dig pieces that I can connect to on that level. You know I'm hardly around anymore... glad I caught this one.

up.

This was fantastic. The word choices and tone of the piece suggested both of you were on some Keats/Whitman vibes. Loved it.

This had beautiful lines through-out but just some that caught my eye,

"you crack smiles like
river beds in the summer"

"our mouths like ditches
to fall asleep in"

"your hair like five am ruin"

These are some examples of brilliant imagery, smart and well thought of. What I liked about this piece was how it feel like a sonnet almost, but with a modern day tone and wording. I think it was wonderful.


http://www.rapbattles.com/forum/show...520/index.html

I owe you guys some replies.

last bump.

Well, this is pretty quality.

The first bit is just the flow of the imagery and how the language just allows this thing to bread fluidly. The meta-narrative is dope... the entire concept of the open road and consistently using imagery that ties in just isn't done enough today. We obviously see how it works out.
On your imagery, it was all very consistent. Kind of strait to the point mixed with some heavy, abstract stuff just seem so normal and organic... as if its a cliche. Thats how obvious some of your similes were... I read them and just say, "Yeah, totally."
This Just had really well formulated imagery that was consistent and continually reminder the reader of the overall narrative of the poem.

One of the better pieces I've read in a while on RB.
Thanks for sharing

Impeccable

Double posted (I tried to edit the post and it reposted).

I greatly enjoyed reading this, but I have two criticisms:

1. In a poem as long as that, it seems repetitive to keep coming back to that driving/road trip metaphor again and again, much in the same way that using puns with the same theme ceases to be funny when used in humor. The concept was less fresh by the end of the poem than it was when it was introduced at the beginning.

2. The way the stanzas were broken up was a little peculiar in a couple of places. Maybe this is my own hang-up since I'm not generally a fan of lines continuing on a seperate stanza unless it's for a specific effect.

Things you did well:
It was obvious that the two of you communicated your ideas to each other and planned out your writing before executing it, which is rare in these kinds of collaborations. I had no clue as to who wrote what. Definitely a good thing.

I really liked the part with the compass directions. It conjured to mind images of searching road maps on long journeys, and this implied image was entertaining to read (whether or not that was the intention). The following line, "all thumbs and no maps" shut out this image and implied that you were not driving towards an intended destination. I like the juxtaposition there, if that's what you were going for.

Although the similes in particular became a little bit repetitive, the imagery and the figurative content were at the very least consistent, and this is obviously difficult to accomplish when collaborating with another poet.