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Friday, July 23, 2010

the road




Scottsburg, Indiana
7/23/2010

a weariness drives me to go
a subtle pall that builds
from the waiting
and knowing it’s not yet time
a different kind of ache
that eats at your brain
like a cancer
that will not enter remission

i kid myself into believing
there is a cure
but there is none
there is only
the road bound fatigue
that propels me into anxiety
for the perfect vista
the ultimate sweeping corner
that constant human urge
to not live in this moment
but to desire for the next
hoping it will ease the fatigue

my body aches
from the heat and the physical task
of the motorcycle being
not an extension of me
but me
i am not an observer
or a witness
but a part of it
living in it
having it now

i fight the idea that
i will carry the memories of it
for future road lust
as a form of satisfaction
because it is a kind of distancing
then i will miss it
and it will be gone
truly gone
forever

i try to remember
that to experience the road
is to get it all
the love
the lust
the burn in my legs
the pangs in my back
the thirst and exhaustion
from the stunning southern heat
and moving forward
when it feels bad
to do so
it doesn’t matter
i go

Michael B

6 comments:

  1. Really like your "Love in a Dream" poem. But I had to comment on the Scottsburg, Indiana entry, because I think you may have posted a picture of another area by mistake. There's a hill!!!! :) Seriously. Impossible. Is this like a mirage, a desert oasis thing?

    Karen (Rutherford)

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  2. Well you win the cigar, Karen! The photo attached to "the road" poem was written at the motel where I stayed in Scottsburg, but the photo was taken in Eastern Arizona. Sharp eye you have there! but being and Indianan(?), you would certainly know.

    Thanks for your comment on the "love in a dream" poem. This was an actual occurrence of my first loving feelings for a girl when I was 12 years old and finally wrote those intense feelings that I've remembered all these years.

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  3. LOL!!! That is so funny that the pic is in Arizona. I swore I had missed the ONLY hill in Indiana!! (I've been here 8 years now and have yet to find one. And I've tried.)

    Good grief. 12 years old!! I'd say you were meant to be a poet. :)

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  4. There is actually more to that story that I believe will make a pretty good short story. You may see that sometime, perhaps after I finish the John Coltrane piece I'm currently working on.

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  5. Excellent road poem. You capture the fatigue of travel combined with the restless urge to go on. All hardcore travellers know that feeling.

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  6. Ah-h-h, First love....the jump of the heart because of a glimpse... but this sounds serious almost a permanent affliction!

    I'm glad you're back at the keyboard!

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