Posted in Photos, Poetry

And Dangerous as the Human Heart

Posted on by jillys2016 
“…in the black changing sound
 of night, the enormous Florida night,
 metallic with cicadas, musical
 and dangerous as the human heart.”

Lynda Hull
 from Insect Life of Florida


The highways swish and buzz
hot tires like a one-night-stand
speak dirty to the asphalt
together they cry in an ecstasy of anger
using, being used, knowing this
yet, embracing the night
igniting desire, one
for distance, miles to go before
sleeping
rocking to the clicking of cooling
engines
the other, living only through
those that pass over
used up and forgotten on this
night that
beats
beats
beats

© Jilly’s 2016

Join us over at dVerse, where Walt is tending bar on this the first day of summer! 

Author:

A wild soul writing poetry.

22 thoughts on “And Dangerous as the Human Heart”

  2. The connection of “Dangerous as the human heart” with our Florida roads is… well, it should become required reading in driver’s training classes! Awesome connection, vivid imagery in your poem… love the illustration!

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  7. oh the use of those cars on those summer nights — takes me back to the days of my youth in downtown Waukegan, Illinois…I was the one walking the streets watching the boys with their arms stuck out the windows, slowly scooping the loop….different from your scene here — but the sweaty cars and sweaty arms somehow related. 🙂

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    1. I lived in Zion for a time and had a pet bird that would run up and down the window ledge like he was chasing the cars! The feel there is very much like the highway in my poem. Thanks for sharing!

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  10. “hot tires like a one-night-stand
    speak dirty to the asphalt”

    Love this part in particular – and the whole poem reminds me of a destructive relationship also, where one party wants to be used, for whatever reason. So strong.

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  15. Prescient and dangerous and wild, like windows rolled down driving a Florida summer night. Inhaling the rush of wilderness. I wrote a whole sequence of poems some years back about US411 — the Orange Blossom Trail — that was paved, it seems to me, in desire. Great stuff.

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