The Road to Knowwhere

By Fred Potter

Poems from a darker side. A journey through pain to a place of redemption and peace. And, a few conversations with an irritable, belittling guy who is sometimes referred to as a supreme being and who ought to have a better answering service. From the author of “A Classified Christmas,” “Hunky Dory Bible Stories,” and “The Adventures of Jabber and Mumble.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fred Potter
• Release date: Oct 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310123801

Book preview

The Road to Knowwhere

By Fred Potter

Copyright 2014 by Fred Potter

Smashwords Edition

JUMPY JACK

Once there was a froggie

His name was Jumpy Jack

He said I’m gonna jump across I-70 and back!

But lots of cars were passing

And driving very fast

When Jack looked at the concrete, he was very much aghast!

There were lots of dead dead bodies

As dead as they could be

Smashed as flat as pancakes, bloody, bony and grisly

There were opossums and dead squirrels

Dead deer and fox and mice

Jumpy Jack thought to himself, This isn’t very nice!

He hopped along the highway

Remaining on his side

But everywhere he hopped he saw another squishy hide!

The other critters tried it

And paid a dearly price

For wanting what our Jack did want: to get to paradise

Across the wide four lanes

Was where he meant to go

There’d be flies and gnats and skeeters and he’d swallow them up whole!

Bugs and bugs and more bugs

Juicy as could be

His froggy tongue was watering and tensing for the spree!

But cars are so much bigger

Than Mister Jumpy Jack

The flying steel scared him, the Tires of Fate, pitch-black

Worst of all, the trucks and

tractor-trailers fly VAROOOM!

Spinning tires of instant death, a tread-imprinting doom

So Mister Jack, he waited there

On the strip emergency

He waited for a lull in all the high-speed lunacy

And as he did, he watched

His eyes saw horror and despair

An eagle swooped in low – and took a hide to some somewhere

A chill ran up his slimy back

His froggie heart went colder

Witnessing the darkness, man and nature, from the shoulder

How could it be that something

As simple as a passage

Could lead to all this pain and death and all this heartless carnage?

Then suddenly a quiet

Only wind did he hear blow

And Jumpy’s frightened froggy brain said "GO, Jack, you must GO!

While no one now is coming!

Jump quick! Jump now! Jump far!"

And so he leaped, he bounded – and prayed there be no car!

His feet, they slapped the concrete!

He hesitated not!

He made it to the median and GLORY! was his thought!

Almost there! Almost there!

Two lanes to go! he said

He jumped out to concrete once again where tires tread

But this time it was different

A rumble he did feel

His feet felt coming tons of rubber, glass and heavy steel

"Must jump faster! Faster!

The pressure, I can’t take it!

Here it comes! My last mistake! I’m never gonna make it!"

But jump he did, so fast and far

His green did sail the air

Never was a faster frog, ‘til Jumpy Jack was there

One last jump and almost home

Airborne one more time

And Jack escaped the tires by the thickness of a dime

He rolled down an embankment

He tumbled to a ditch

To the realm of bugs and water, mud and foam so rich!

It all was true! I knew it!

His frog mind celebrated

An end beyond his wildest dreams, the risk so calculated

Snap and pop! Slurp and gulp!

The bugs were easy takin’

He ate them all and belched and croaked until the dawn was breakin’

He stayed in there for days and days

The nights were crazy good

But then he came to realize a truth misunderstood

He thought it was a little trip

A froggie-frog adventure

And though it