Poetry Sunday: On The Road Home
The following poem was published in November 2012 in Ygdrasil, which boasts of being the oldest poetry journal online. I'd also add that it's one of the most serious.
Though published just a few short years ago, the poem, in its first iteration, was written in the early 1990s, which makes it nearly 30 years old. It has been revised a couple of time since then, but not much. It contains the original spirit and tone with only a few lines of imagery updated to a more contemporary malaise.
Image from Pixabay.
While I generally feel that good poetry needs no introduction, I feel almost compelled to mention a few things. First, like all literature, the poem--titled "On The Road Home"--relies on a central artifice. It is fiction, though the underlying theme itself is not.
As a young man, I struggled--psychologically, emotionally, and philosophically--with the common ideals associated with family. I had grown up in a very strict religious home claiming Christianity as its guidon. As I grew older, I began to question much of what I was taught and took note of many inconsistencies between the doctrines I had learned and the practices I had witnessed. While there are good memories and some positive values modeled, there was also a lot of dysfunction and abuse--mostly verbal and emotional. I was a wreck of a young man.
I wrote this poem while mired in a despondency that had me questioning why I kept returning home to see a family with whom I had little in common. We didn't appear to love each other, or did we?
That was how I felt at the time. Maturity and a spiritual regeneration years later have given me a different perspective. Yet, this poem remains. It mixes surrealism with traditionalism in a lyrical, almost prosaic, epic narrative similar to William Carlos Williams' Paterson or parts of T.S. Eliot.
Here's to hoping you can make sense of it.
On The Road Home
It is love that draws me here.
Year after daunting year, I, like a hunter's mad dream,
enshrined by the dew, dawn ellipses trembling, dazed
by the littered landscape, as if rowing along some Russian Riviera
or traversing Esperanto trails, make my way
back, back to nuclear origins, back to my vested youth
and to the vertigo living room where first I
cut my teeth on Saturday morning cartoons
and Sesame Street; perverse Chinese art embalms my journey,
makes it bearable. Ingrained deep within my bones
lies the heart of humanity, engrossed
in photogenic images, embittered
creatures crawling up from the past to explore
the largeness, the depths of cranberry cathedrals and mosques
with minarets made of stone. I do not know whether to return
is an act of grace, but I was born with one foot on the stage
and one hand touching the sky; I was baptized
by a culture of damnation while Christ sang hymns
of beauty and agnostic gurus stripped bamboo shoots
between naked teeth. Aaaah, but to go back is like running
a thousand marathons without cleansing the juice that flows
through aqueductian veins. I took the grand tour through mansions
and wax museums, where golden-haired damsels dream of romance;
dark, mysterious, lonely,
they dance as lyrical ballerinas, toes
curled like corn chips cavorting splendor;
and in their short skirts they flirt with the same fluid style
as their music -- lucid and ancient, timeless as the wings of Icarus,
perfect as Pythagorean formulas, tilted and jilted like New Age melodies.
Image from Pixabay.
They wave from behind the dying tree
where, as children, we swung from the circle
of a tractor tire, arms spread out pretending to fly,
our bellies plunged flat against the rubber
filled with filth and father's beer; the tree then was young,
where grandpappy hoisted us up with rope and pulley
and laughed till his dentures spilled out onto the red dust
of Texas clay;
there they stand, these nymphs,
calling me forward with smiles like pensive pale grins
topped by spouts, looking like giant teapots
bathed in blue, dripping of cunning. Lined up along the byway,
stretched from mile marker 333 to the service station
where I pumped my first tank of gas.
They remind me of the camaraderie of soldiers, to feel a part of something big.
Nastassja Kinski and her serpentine slopes could not make me feel
more welcome. In the dire distress of longing
I search for the reasons, the reasons to turn back,
the reasons not to go or postpone until another day,
perhaps May or September, or even another year. Instead
I drive on. Aboard the ISS cosmonauts reflect upon Plushenko
spelling his name on ice. The Bible on the dashboard
is open to Genesis Chapter 11
and the Tower of Babel
screams incoherently for forgiveness,
but I cannot listen.
The nature of Indian folklore is elusive, it is everywhere
and nowhere, and I have begged an audience with teenage rock stars,
with princes, and with monks and priests
to bow or pray before their altars and their thrones.
Image from Pixabay.
This possible adventure reels me toward the lurking lunacy
of my childhood, exotic and neurotic, half-way erotic,
fetches me an iron rod from which I gain new perspective,
and hurls me into the bosom, an interlocking chasm of familiar sand,
into the laps and lips of memories with high school divas and dames,
sweethearts damned by their Penelope Pitstop cries, Alice in Wonderland eyes,
or their pulpit flocking thighs sprawled out upon the rocks
of dirty country roads; this trip back homeward
to mother and blueberry pie, to the fleeting glimpses
of lost unwholesome years and unforgotten sins:
once again, this repeated ritual, this honest hassle, to drive
and be driven upon, to wake and to remember
the terrible tears cried upon poisonous pillows
and to know, to suspect that after all it was just
a token or a small friendly gesture, a kind affection
flaunting yet fretting the long awaited embrace of imperfection,
and the waiting to tell stories not yet written
for generations unborn and not yet told to children
not yet heard of: it was all this,
the soft caresses of Maria What's-Her-Name,
and the resting, no, the hiding in the warmth
of her short brown arms, lips biting down upon hardened nipples
in the glare of the midnight moon's keen oversight;
it was the hard harsh hand of discipline
that prodded me
like cattle, the pull of sisterly kisses,
the polite push of inspiration and the manic messages
of Radio Ga Ga, Crosby, Stills & Nash,
and Bob Seger melodically crooning "turn the page;"
Image from Pixabay.
it was the flattery of fandango dances that forced me to go. Yet still,
when I think back to the beginning, before igniting of fuel,
before the crank of the key, before the locking of a hesitant house,
when I could have decided not to come -- and here I am
pulling into the willing wailing drive,
yearning for remembrance,
wide open like the mouths of codfish,
and wondering what it was, back then, that compelled me go --
in the grasp of stultifying fears, behind the mask of quaking heartaches,
amid the pain of tender refusals, alongside faltering objections
I had and still have; through all that, and the winnowing windows,
the chiliastic chortles and portals of empty promises -- yes,
even then I knew:
it was love.
All along it was the damned bullish bite of love.
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with permission from @guiltyparties
Wow! Just an awesome poem mate. I really love the alliteration in these lines:
But there are so many more amazing sections and imagery that I can't really start going into a blow by blow of what I like, as we would still be here as the December snow started falling ;-)
Sunday poetry is a thing now! Thanks for sharing your epic blockurator
Thank you for reading, and for your exuberant praise.
Ha ha, I don't usually gush like that mate. It really is an excellent piece of work!
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I love your frequent repetitions of the "f" sound really it's brilliant and almost as rhythmic, I had to repeat the consonant sound and boy, it brought this rippling effect
I must say, you're a brilliant writer really metaphoric expressions are your strongest points, and the way you use words expresses total emotion. Well done, this is well written.
Thank you. Much appreciated.
Sometimes it takes suitcases of done poems before you get it out of your system
Yes it does.
Sounds like we've had similar experiences growing up...
My late father was first a minister, then a counselor, and finally a shrink. He was a very intelligent and kind man; my first positive role model, friend, and mentor.
Contrastingly, my mother is a retired nurse, religious (on the outside), and rather manipulative woman. I don't think I've ever seen her do anything without a hidden agenda.
From early childhood until adolescence, I witnessed the dichotomy of personalities and behavior in my parents; oftentimes feeling confused and disappointed.
After running away from home at 13, then joining the military at 17, I didn't realize how many trust issues I harbored until much later in life.
And it took many years to learn how to resolve some dysfunctional coping mechanisms.
Enjoyed your post immensely.
May you and yours be well and love life today.
Namaste, My Friend.
JaiChai
It took me falling on my knees in the face of God and relinquishing all the gunk that had been built up over the years. It finally ended up nailed on the cross, right where it belongs.
Thanks for reading. You have a keen eye.
Very interesting. Can't wait to read your next poem, sir.
Thank you.
very beautiful poetry friend a lot of magic applied in writing, you are a teacher for these things every poetry matches every word that great publication I would say. I will become lovers of poetry before I only heard that they spoke of poetry but I did not call much attention but today I read and if you caught me in poetry @blocker friend I congratulate you a great support here @neymarth10
I am humbled by your praise. Thank you very much.
This one is amazing. I feel inspired.
Thank you.
Reading this poem was an amazing experience as it embarked me on a journey depicting different shades of love. Brilliant!
Thank you! That's quite an endorsement.
man you can write for sure well done.
Thank you very much, @stever82
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