Near where I live three former cow paths which are now roads come together at an awkward angle to create what people in New England call an intersection. On-coming cars actually face off against one another, and left turns are only attempted by the locals who know the invisible dead spot in the middle where they are out-of-the-way of crossing traffic. And just to make it interesting, this is the main intersection in front of a K-8 school, throwing tiny pedestrians into the mix.
Among all the madness there are road signs, but the one that I’ve always liked was a white rectangle with a stack of four-letter words neatly arranged one atop the other.
LEFT
LANE
MUST
TURN
LEFT
They could have said “left turn only” or used one of those international symbols with the word “only” beneath it, but instead they went with what I only recently realized was a poetic solution to a simple direction at an inelegant passing.
With that in mind, I collected a list of four-letter words found on traffic, parking, and other common road signs and came up with the following collection of semi-found sign poetry.
REST
AREA
EXIT
HERE
DEERSLOW
DOWN
THRU
DEAD
ZONETAXI
DON’T
STOP
ONLY
PASSWORK
CREW
KEEP
ROAD
SOFTBIKE
BEND
WALK
THIS
TIMEBUMP
ZONE
GIVE
REAR
HORN
I couldn’t resist reusing “zone” because I seem to have a vague memory of a disco-era LP that had a pair of young dancers cheek-to-cheek (and I ain’t talking faces) with a road sign above it that said “bump zone.”
Poetry Friday is stop-and-go down at Carol’s Corner this week, so be sure to look both ways and drive safe.
GOOD
WORK
DELZ
DONT
STOP
ah, sooner or later had to stumble onto one of my jr high nicknames.
MERGING
WORDS
POET
AT
WORK
Fun stuff, Mr. E.
Would love to have you host a PF round up. If you are so inclined, the signup is here:
http://readingyear.blogspot.com/2011/06/poetry-friday-you-are-there.html
could you imagine the chaos if there really was a POET AT WORK sign posted by road crews in front of poet’s houses, as if to tell passing motorists “caution! dangerous passing!”
i signed up for a slot in october.
You are a regular poetry magnet! I imagine you going about your business, and words flying out of nowhere and sticking to you.
Slow
Down
Thru
Poem
Zone!
my wife says that i have a “sticky brain” where all sorts of stuff just gets lodged forever. i can sing TV jingles that haven’t been on the air since 1965. sometimes its a curse. not this week.
Love this! I travel a lot by car. I’ve found some of the most amusing signs on college campuses: caution speed humps. slow for speed lumps. What happened to plain ol’ speed bumps?!
are you sure those weren’t modified, like the ped x-ing signs where the little stick figure is losing a sombrero? humps and lumps? was it a medical campus? so odd…