Poetry Night at the Writing Life, 24 March 2024
Poems about traveling, being on the road... and skywalks.
Hi, everyone. Sorry for the delay. As I discussed a couple of weeks ago, things have been pretty hectic for me.
However, I managed to get a few things written last week… and they included a bit of poetry. I’ve been spending time in downtown Des Moines during that time, commuting between there, where my son lives and he’s been recovering from a work accident, and the school where I teach in south central Iowa. It’s a bit of a commute, but it is only for a relatively short period of time.
All of this traveling and new surroundings seem to have inspired some new works of poetry, which I’ll share with you this Sunday. Both of them have directly been inspired by life on the road.
A Plug For the Site
While you’re here, I wanted to add just a quick description of how The Writing Life works. With a free subscription, you always will have access to my newsletters on the first and third weekends of the month, as well as selected articles up to a month after they’ve been published. However, If you have a paid subscription with me (which is pretty inexpensive), you will have access to all of my articles here, all of my archives, and my eternal gratitude. Plus, probably some first-dibs on possible future offers.
Programming Note
Just a quick reminder there will not be a newsletter or other publication planned for next weekend (the fifth and last weekend of March). I’m usually either taking a break during that weekend or perhaps posting a paid subscriber exclusive post. This weekend will be both Easter and my birthday, so I’m expecting to take the week off.
Right, then. Let’s get to the poetry.
Settled, Then Unsettled (Life on the Road)
Des Moines/Pella, Iowa, March 2024
A traveler’s life
Is consistent in its
Inconsistency.
A side effect of
Never staying in the same place
For more than a while
Is the sense of being
Settled, then
Unsettled.
Without a set home,
Or a true base of operation
Or a place you know you won’t have
To vacate
Within a few day
You come and go
All at once.
You travel to a new shelter
Not knowing where the best coffee can be Found
And with no idea if you have to make it Yourself.You have to spend a day or two
And a dollar or fifty
To figure out where the best stores are at
And the best Chinese places
And where you can find some clothes
Or meds
If you didn’t remember them
Somewhere along the way.
It takes you a few days
To get the lay of the land
Or the canals, as the case may be
And just as you think you have everything
Settled
And you know where you’re going to
Hole up
And maybe write a story or two
(And you don’t need much, a laptop, a flat surface serving as a desk, and preferably Some WiFi)
And all along the way
You learn more about how
To cope with the constant
Boogie and Move
You learn how to pack over two or three
Days
So when you leave a place
You only have to walk out of it once.
Packing light and packing only
What you need
Is the one skill you master
On the Road
But adjusting to your surroundings
Is always something learned
And relearned
Since the surroundings
Always change.
Some travelers know
Where they’re going to be
Next week
But I’m the type of traveler
Who doesn’t know where I’ll be
By the next day
And that’s not anyone’s fault
It’s just the circumstances
I find myself in
But to paraphrase
What Octavia Butler once wrote
The only thing that never changes
Is Change.
Skywalk
Des Moines, Iowa, March 2024
The night and the wind and the cold
Swirl around the
Steel, concrete, and glass
Airborne tunnels
While I stroll across industrial carpet
And concrete
One whole story above the streets
And the darting cars, trucks, and buses
Fighting for position below.
It’s life in the Des Moines Skywalk.
Traveling in the suspended corridors
Burrowing their way through the
Lower portions of
The Des Moines skyline
Is not unlike traveling
In your own home
But actually going somewhere.
You alternate between
Taking an aerial tour of the city
And passing through endless
Lowly lit
Little populated
Liminal spaces
Where your destination is
Always out of sight
But where you are is
Nowhere in particular
Even after you scan the
Maps on the walls.
You come across billboards advertising
To no one visible in particular
And mismatched odds and ends of
Offices and shops
But depending on the time
They sit vacant.
There are even some shopping areas
You discover
Reminding you both of the massive malls,
The temples dedicated to consumerism
Of your youth,
And the vacant ghost malls of the
Present.
With a few set decorations,
The Skywalk could be
The set of some science fiction epic
Standing in for a distant world
Or perhaps an abandoned space station
Or massive space vessel.
It’s not the most comforting place in
Des Moines
But you can explore the city
Without getting rained on
At least.