Long Unpaved Poems
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The remnants of what we built don't wash away with the seasonal rain;
They sit like heavy clay at the bottom of a dried-up borehole.
Perhaps our calendar together was short, a brief lease on happiness,
A whispered contract written on water, a fleeting relief from the wind.
We used to dance with heavy words until the midnight cold broke,
Believing we could reclaim a connection the city had already priced out.
With every stride across the unpaved roads, our bond tried to take flight,
A stubborn fire we fed with dry wood, burning too bright to last.
Your laughter used to echo off the corrugated roofs, a sharp melody,
A local rhythm that our solitary souls could never quite match.
But like the dust kicked up by a passing vehicle, our time went astray,
Leaving a heavy silence behind, a funeral song for a love we couldn't budget.
Yet I am not wandering blindly through this psychological wreckage.
I bring my heavy chest back to the Kgotla of my mind, finding peace with the Creator.
I recite the heavy verses of the old people, the stories they never put in textbooks,
Sifting through lands that the maps forgot, where love once had a name.
I will return to the edge of the rapids for the echoes of my final verse,
Not as a broken man, but burning softly like a lantern in Kachikau nights.
Whether the community notices my footprint or not,
I will come and go,Leaving behind these blunt whispers of what it means to survive the frost.
In the thick stillness of the Chobe night, when the engines finally stop,
I will deposit my secrets into the sand, knowing love remains an unpayable debt
A quiet, unyielding asset that even the coldest winter cannot repossess.
Form:
I lay my head down to sleep to the calm and peaceful sound of music flowing through the thick trees cruising from the subdivision below my dwelling.The rhythmic sounds of crickets and frogs composed a beautiful sympony and spawned a strange unfamiliar song that lay motionless on my ear, forcing me to absorb the quiet scent of the night and fall asleep without fear.In the dead heat of the night something thrust me from my bed and I found myself in the tumult of everyday life wrestling with the bearded probe again .I discovered my truck in a parking lot with bright white paint applied to the side. A sheet of paper lays flat in the windscreen bearing a name and number "Why should someone paint my truck in white", I muttered silently to myself.This strange happening propelled me to anxiously called the number.A high pitched voice woman answered the phone and gave me directions to find her. I drove endlessly humming a tune until I ended up on the other side of town. As tacky as it seemed and as gloomy as it appeared I entered the place without fear. I parked outside an unpaved parking lot and entered a tall gigantic apartment building and walked up the stairs. Suddenly two young women met me half way and told me that they would take me to the person who painted my truck .All three of us ventured down the stairs and pounced upon a confused crowd of people walking aimlessly up and down the streets while motor vehicles sprawled out everywhere.We hurriedly walked passed a depot and saw hard working men dressed in military suits standing next to barbed wire fences loading people urgently into trucks.They were recruiting barbers and people with skills to join them while screaming and shouting as if they were on the auction block. Many people boarded the truck but we shoved our way through the crowd until we reached a crowded market. The two young woman suddenly disappeared and left me alone standing there.I searched for my truck but I could not find it.Dawn brought the night's fury to an end and I was relieved to be back to reality again.
©2014 Christine Phillips
Every form of life has it's walls, nothing, no one stands alone
some are trees, brush, branch, twig and wood and bark
some are mortar and stone, mere workers flesh and bone
others lay in memorials of the mind and heart of freedom's start.
Walking in the shadows of the forest growing bare
the pathway, worn and tattered by twigs and leaves of this locale
abandoned layers born of unknown, hidden architects no longer there
an opening spillway becomes a stage to walled canals.
Some harvested stone stacked upon each side
keeping water flow secure along Delaware and Raritan park roams
contained and directed from Bound Brook on to Princeton pride
away from the mix of dirt and cobblestones.
Who once walked here, where canoed and kayak waters strewn?
along this unpaved curl of hidden trails indemnity
twists and turns unfurling to a spillway hewn
where memorials now stand as markers without memory.
They say, Irish immigrants built this waterway like a well-planned quilt
some bodies buried where they worked and died
benath the rocked mortared wall containments blood built
and their hearts sought freedom without walls that today still cry,
For Craig Cornish cotest, A Wall in the Woods
10/7/2020
Background: The 70-mile Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park is one of central New Jersey's most popular recreational corridors for canoeing, jogging, hiking, bicycling, fishing and horseback riding. The canal and the park are part of the National Recreation Trail System. This linear park is also a valuable wildlife corridor connecting fields and forests. A recent bird survey conducted in the park revealed 160 species of birds, almost 90 of which nested in the park.
With its wooden bridges and 19th century bridge tender houses, remnants of locks, cobblestone spillways and hand-built stone-arched culverts, the canal is a tremendous attraction for history lovers. The upper portion of the feeder canal follows the Delaware River through historic New Jersey towns such as Frenchtown, Stockton and Lambertville. The main canal passes the Port Mercer bridge tender's house, through the charming villages of Kingston and Griggstown to Blackwells Mills.
night yet clings
yet smothers the numb highway
breathe the wheel
sigh through the gears
wave-ride rubber after-shocks
follow the beam-eyed light
into the blossoming gray
adjusts to blacktop rapids
the sky is passing
it is now ahead of itself
convertible clouds weep dry tears
slip-slide the slick dark banks
with flickering wrists
A second light blooms
a small sun pastes itself onto distant white
a hooded bonnet shakes like a wet wolf
the horizon is now a mobile scaffolding
the whispering tread of a fast coming daylight
rushes into view, it snorts though a crystal vase
that the mind grips tightly
the roads blind ability
to avoid Niagara or the Grand Canyon
guides cold white knuckles
the drunk rocking of a back axle
warns you of a surfacing
unpaved parking lot
engine bones tick-over
articulate shuddering full stops
as they cough up stillness
here
at the end of
one half of a minute
and that is the third manifestation
of breathable light
The Paths
by Franklin Price
1/30/2016
Some paths you follow paved and wide
Where you may move with ease
To deviate from left to right
Much doing as you please
Negotiating sweeping curves
Can look around the bend
No trouble there that you can see
Not coming to an end
Then comes unpaved and narrow
Not many choices there
Switchbacks are imbedded
Proceed on the way with care
Cliffs are there imposing
Many dangers for a fall
Cling closely to the inside
Or don't go there at all
You may go with someone
Or you may go alone
As the leader or the follower
There are skills that you must hone
And as you travel on life's path
Decide yourself where you should trod
Make intelligent decisions
While you place your faith in God
The earth shakes, mimicking my weary bones,
And the ground is wet with tears left behind.
The cage of whiteness, locked tightly inside,
Upholds the heavy weight of every day's design.
Secrets and memories are ghosts we keep,
Bound tightly within the walls of the chest—
Forgiven, forgotten, or just cast aside,
The architecture of a heart aching for rest.
My steps falter on the unpaved ground,
Stumbling under the weight of a calcified spine.
Yet all this physical aching scarcely compares
To the quiet, structural cage of skeletal frame—
That has, until today,
Only answered to the marrow of your name.
Looking back, I found a fool now silent
The memories languished deep in my mind
Well hidden from a fragile heart's lament
And the truth, a light that can be unkind
Time was passing and confusion was king
To young to see, to stupid to grow
Life was a circus, I stood in its ring
No reasons were sought, nothing more to know
I see now what I should have seen then
Pleasure turned to hell when that's all there was
When each day was like the last, come again
And every lover grew tired just because
I became lost time, they dispensed with
A house of glass where reflection reveals
Fallen momuments from memories myth
And illusions sustained that were concealed
What does it add up to?When old and bent
A life lived or a life that was wasted
To travel unpaved roads without consent
And find the sweetest food never tasted
Looking back, found a fool for all to see
It was someone I've known, It was me
She was a lonely violin,
in a case all by herself,
looking forward to the evenings,
when he’d take her off the shelf-
After reaching his destination,
he would gently set her down,
and ever oh so tenderly,
remove her velvet gown-
With chin held high, he’d hold her close,
she made him feel so proud,
and then a song she would sing ,
which always drew a crowd-
Together they were magical,
making music quite refined,
he knew that she was special,
of an extraordinary kind-
Late one night the maestro sighed,
a tear rolled down his eye,
this cannot forever last, he said,
for soon I’m going to die-
The violin now knew,
that soon would be their end,
he had filled her life with loving care,
and been so true a friend-
Now on any given night,
walking down this unpaved street ,
some hear a violin’s lonely cry,
so sad , but yet so sweet-
Written: April 14, 2024, For Silent One Forgotten Fields Contest
Rumi Verse: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forfeited field, forever felicity-free,
Fight framed, flames floating far-flung.
Fleeting focus, favored, albeit forgotten,
Fathomless flotsam found floating.
Upon the shore, whispers of eternal grace,
We pledge to stick together no matter what.
Recollection forever etched won't subside,
As a quiet dove, I whisper vows of love across seas.
To view a planet as one speck of dust,
An untamed flower encloses bliss.
Embrace the eternity within your grasp,
A sporadic instance, in everlasting clasp.
My rain-soaked quartz dreamscape works,
The hazy sky is adorned with stone scrapes.
A canvas of plain faces, speckled in pale gray,
They rest amidst the oak and ivy.
My financial status must have been dire,
April, however, brought spring too soon.
On trees and shrubs, nesting birds croon,
Untamed glory of nature was awe-in to boon.
Time passage has drawn me gray,
Yet faraway farms linger via mindsight.
I discern the robin's song, vivid and clear,
Whilst the sun rises through dawn veil.
I retain awe-inspiring tales of nature,
During May, hawthorn trees grow white.
A chaffinch melody on a sycamore tree,
Whispers of beauty dwell within my soul.
Hedgerow birds moaned all day in June,
Where flows evolve, male pheasants cuck.
The swallows chase insects up high,
The dipper sang along with the river's flow.
Migrants cherish whispers of a beloved past,
Across ancient fields, I wander, lost in reverie.
Wildflowers adorning the natural green,
Violets bloom in a dwarf, unpaved ditch.
Scattered sway stumbled across swards,
I stood solely smeared supra sundown.
Stitched, stripped shards of September,
Summer swing shed surely snatched.
The golden sun of yesterday
played out in fields of gold
inside the tarping memory of father, handling LIFE
the joyful whistles that he fluted pruned alongside vines
and mothers pumping heart of song lauding in
loud and STRONG
No treason yet no aging bridge no tented hope
just morning glories,
a baby breath away from here
and all the sunlight we'd afford
inside a little yard of sweet explore,
I see,
the lonely eyes of a young girl longing for a friend
a hand held jar for fireflies or butterflies in toe
Pebbles rolled beneath unpaved paths as
dear together raw as butterflies we scabbed our knees
with swivel, in the morning breeze
Like BUTTERFLIES preluding dawn with shiant colors bold,
the summer sun of yesterday played out in fields of gold;
Inside my hiding place a youthful carefree life
still lingers in my heart's enfold,
without the memory, of growing old.
Jan 19, 2019
Sponsor: Emile Pinet
Contest: Free Verse Style Only