Under a Winding Blacktop

Slow or fast
we think behind a slip stream,
a contrail of the gone;
of what went by a momentary window
            long ago.

Asleep under a blacktop,
street-cars roll over my me-mind,
the crunch of old bones
    crackles like thin ice.
I am recalling a time
            now set in resin.

Desiccated bugs bite through,
gnaw at half-painted pictures.
Lost paths
  for the somnambulant dead.
Elephants gather to revisit graveyards.

Alive in a memory,
but let’s not call this 'living,'
      double, treble dipping
      into the time-worn.
Such old imagining's will eventually
kill every analog clock
with their own internal hammers.

What am I writing now?
Yesterday and tomorrow sway
like old measuring scales.
Should I think like a Greek,
                            or a Jew,
arise and dance
shaking my head back and forth
                          as if awakening
            to every fleeting pause?

This is what I am writing
upon the underside
of a road...
        an odyssey of sorts
one taken by a horde of lemmings.
        A talking point
indicating how I got here
recalling this and that,
but then again
          nothing is now real forever.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2022

Poem

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Mccann Avatar
November 16, 2022 at 3:34 AM
Eric, I think this is an important poem. So many intriguing ideas, I won't try to enumerate. It goes into Favs! Elizabeth
Ashford Avatar
November 16, 2022 at 6:07 AM
Thank you Elizabeth, not too sound smug but I do agree with your assessment of this. Much obliged for this feedback.
Hankins Avatar
November 13, 2022 at 12:23 PM
Eric, I really like this poem. I'm not sure I understand where you are coming from, and some of the phrases and images are strange to me, but I'm sure they have meaning to you. Keep me wondering!
Ashford Avatar
November 14, 2022 at 10:50 AM
LOL it is rather enigmatic, but perfect understanding, thankfully. is not a reequipment in reading poetry. Thank you L Milton for this kind response.
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