In Lieu Of

I’ve been told, time and again

through praise in prose from those

who hold tight familiar fences,

like a hen in a pen as relentless

as the sleepless nights I know.

They’ll chime in unison,

urging and asking of the throes

that draw me away, selectively I go.

One will only grasp mere glances

through the dust kicked up

my scattered advances,

in any direction that entices.

I’ve heard it said

with words I so care for

slipped together on simple thread

I must only meander more

as many are still and stagnant

yet I may move, and therefore

have given wandering thoughts to be read.

It seems a beautiful bundle,

such churning and unresting plans

shifting with each city’s lay of land

oh the disguise this leaving wears,

the intrigue it weaves and imprint it leaves,

as I continue on. Out. Away.

Gone on a gregarious gust, shifting my heart before it can rust. Pausing is consuming, this I’ve always known, never becoming intrigued by the burly, bustling, and brimming echo that emanates and ricochets from below bold buildings. I can never linger long. My toes and soul itching atop concrete that cracks with the creak of the Earth beneath. I feel flustered, not fluttered, in places of such cement stillness. For I am of great landscapes, my homeland as a whole, and corners remain undiscovered. I become undone, when the curious lure of the unknown draws a boundless breath, and a booming bellow billows abroad. So on I go. Searching far and wide

high and low

onlookers wonder what I know

and I loathe to tell I’ve lied

masking my muse with the reaching skies.

It is not a tall tale, my affinity for the road

yet nonetheless it covers and hides

my deepest desire, my heaviest load.

Restless, I’ve learned

is a constant state.

Safely stifled in light distraction

new spaces, new faces, new reactions,

though I find in due time

as I tuck into bed

or in any space found to lay my head,

I feel the vibrato of midnight’s strike

and wait. Perhaps for the next town,

at night, I wait.

Like a looming lamp illuminated,

blinking by the bite of bitter breeze

my impudent roaming not yet to cease

misguided so frequently it seems,

I wonder, where will it be

pouring and surging like a sea sprung free, the thing with teeth so deep in me,

drawing me on. Out. Away.

This foreign place I’ve yet to stay

its coordinates uncharted

told in changing tongues,

O at night I wonder

where will I find love. *AMK *(originally written Sept. 2015, but lengthened in May to meet a poetry contest's word count) -