Rewrite of Road Kill Much Shorter

[milo]

I have a feeling I'm really going to get it with this one Not sure if herbaceous works here.

Road-Kill

When I am driving rural roads, the dust
Will cloud around windows, as gravel creaks
Beneath, the wheels that hold a heavy force.
Herbaceous eating quadrupeds will die.
When driving long enough, a man will come
Across a wealth of dead and flatly laid
Road-Kill. It’s spring, and roads are rife
With fragile rabbits symbolizing life.
The brake-pads of my car are wearing out
From halting stops, but even brakes don’t cease
Inevitable death. The cracking spines
That signal unexpected ends on roads.

You have some serious problems throughout with voice and tone as well as word choice. Phrases like herbaceous quadrupeds signal a scientific or detached voice. Rural roads signals the opposite. I don't even know why you would use the word quadrupeds in a poem that wasn't tetrameter unless it was a satire or parody!

When I am driving, the dust
clouds, gravel creaks
Beneath, the wheels
quadrupeds die.

It’s spring, and roads are rife
With rabbits symbolizing life.
The brake-pads of my car are wearing out
but brakes don’t cease (prevent?)
death. The cracking spines
That signal (sound?) unexpected ends .

Here I have simply deleted the words that are adding nothing to your poem. Through that painful process, I realize that your poem is the irony between the symbolism of rabbits and the realism of dead rabbit carcasses littering the roads.

You tend toward the weak, passive language throughout here (things WILL happen, things ARE happening) verse reads stronger when things happen.

Examples:

The break pads of my car are wearing out = My car's worn brake pads
When I am driving = when I drive
the dust will cloud = dust clouds
etc, etc