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Idiottraveller.com/travel-poetry
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Website: https://www.idiottraveller.com/travel-poetry
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21.01.2022 . Image: At Eternity's Gate (Van Gogh): FORGOTTEN SOUL #26 - In the series, Writing from the Road; poems, prose and images from 65 years on the Road which I started posting on January 1, 2021.... This is a project to publish all my finished writing and a selection of images from a back catalogue of 35,000 images - see my Flickr archive https://tinyurl.com/3j5utzm3 - taken on every continent except Antarctica. To see more visit my blog: Home Page: https://www.idiottraveller.com/ Poetry from the Road: https://www.idiottraveller.com/travel-poetry/ FORGOTTEN SOUL Was it really so long ago? 17 years now since you left Not a soul seemed bereft Your memory now a shadow To resurface sometimes But on your birthday I did think of you Existing like a shadow In my unconscious mind To resurface sometimes I wonder at your life A life so unknown Was there loneliness? Was there pain? No one asked Did you long for love? The love you pushed away Did you hope for touch? Touch you could not give No one asked I feel for you now Alone in your soul Alone for 90 years Alone with your fears The fears no one knew About this poem: My Dad died in 2004, 17 years ago, at the age of 90. He was a man that scarcely anyone knew in any real sense; like many of his generation he rarely spoke of his feelings, showed little emotion and was uncomfortable with any expression of emotions, either is own or others. No one asked him about his life or his feelings. He died a man unknown. No one in our family talks about him and, I suspect few think about him. He’s like a shadow that exists only in our sub conscious like, I suspect, many men (and some women) of that generation. C. Harris #Writingfromtheroad, #poems, #poetry, #travelpoems, #poem, #poet, #poetrycommunity, #writing, #writingcommunity, #love, #travel, #travelblogger, #travelphotography, #death, #life, #beauty #abandonment #heartbreak #wastelands #dying #greed #hate
20.01.2022 . Image: Belongil Creek, Byron Bay (C. Harris) THE ABANDONED GOD #25 - In the series, Writing from the Road; poems, prose and images from 65 years on the Road... To see more visit my blog: Home Page: https://www.idiottraveller.com/ Poetry: https://www.idiottraveller.com/travel-poetry/ THE ABANDONED GOD You worship your fictional Trinity And ask that we respect your God But each day you are killing mine The real God beneath our feet So close you cannot see it The God of forests, of oceans The God of abandoned places That feeds your body and soul I feel the anger come quicker Seeing the destruction you wrought Killing the places of my childhood Leaving just my dusty memories I crave the touch of the fallen trees The swell of ocean on living reef The ride of the dolphin in the waves The free and clear flowing river The sight of the albatross on the wind The howl of the wolf at the luminous moon The dance of the Brolga on the plain The song of the frog in its swamp Instead hot sand blows to the end of time I hear the forlorn call of the boo book owl Alone now out on its endless range Looking for the last of its dying prey Long across the ocean the blue whale calls A haunting cry to the last of its kind In it’s cry a message to humankind Of the coming of the end of the world Of the death of our common God The abandoned God of abandoned places. About this poem: I dislike conventional religions for two reasons. First, they are one of the great causes of conflict, hatred & division. These are cults that preach poverty but hoard great wealth. Many of their adherents behave in ways which the absolute opposite of their claimed beliefs. If there is anything Godlike in our existence it’s the beauty, intricacy & diversity of the planet we walk on. Some religions seem intend on destroying with the biblical messages of human dominion. C. Harris #Writingfromtheroad, #poems, #poetry, #travelpoems, #poem, #poet, #poetrycommunity, #writing, #writingcommunity, #love, #travel, #travelblogger, #travelphotography, #death, #life, #beauty #abandonment #heartbreak #wastelands #dying #greed #hate #climatechange #thegreatdying #extinction
12.01.2022 . Images: Egypt (photography: Lynette Harris) #27 - In the series, Writing from the Road; poems, prose and images from 65 years on the Road... Flickr archive https://tinyurl.com/3j5utzm3 . Visit my blog: Home Page: https://www.idiottraveller.com/ Poetry: https://www.idiottraveller.com/travel-poetry/ LAMENT FOR A LOST HOME I crossed the dry dusty street Following behind my feet I touched down yesterday I walked the old roadway Landing then from overseas Took the bus past old Ramses Living by a six lane highway Must be his last indignity It’s been fifteen years this year Since we last lived and played When we all were then just children In the Pharaoh's city of legend Passing the old Baron’s Palace Provides some small passing solace For broken memories of home For the broken stones of Fayoum Only the corner flat still stands Of our precious childish heartlands Where our games we fought and played The street where our family stayed I hear the cicadas frenzy The wailing of the muezzins plea The bougainvilleas colour Smell the rich Cairean odour I walk down the street where we ran Crossing the road past the old tram Standing by the first mango stand With juice running all down my hand Past my favourite pastry shop In the shade where we’d always stop For a millefeuille each all round With the teeming street’s raucous sound Every bit has all gone now Sent to oblivion somehow They’ve taken all my memories Buried the place of my stories The distant pyramids still stand In this ancient mystical land But the place I now can recall Is just a faded print on a wall ABOUT THIS POEM: The 5 years I spent in Cairo between ages 5 & 10 (1960-65) were some of my most formative. A time of indolence with endless days spent running in the streets. Memories of heat, sand, street life, the welcome of local people, mango juice & pastries. We lived on the ground level of a magnificent old 3 story, cool characterful stone building, where we spent nights playing cards on the verandah. The imprint of Cairo was so great that, 20 yrs later, with no maps I could find my way around the streets to old houses & haunts. #poetsofinstagram #poetry #writingfromtheroad
09.01.2022 . IMAGE: Morrison as Gollum THE EVIL DOERS # 23 In the series, Writing from the Road; poems, prose and images from 65 years on the Road... Flickr archive https://tinyurl.com/3j5utzm3 - taken on every continent except Antarctica. Visit my blog: Home Page: https://www.idiottraveller.com/ Poetry: https://www.idiottraveller.com/travel-poetry/ You have poisoned our land with lies Taking their money and selling our soil Our beaches swept before your rising seas The forests laid waste by your mines The farmlands poisoned by gas wells Our rivers become ditches of brown Lifeless channels devoid of great fish The water sold to friends for a fee You talk of freedom and of values But you give us a brave new world Places of razor wire, damaged souls Whose hearts blows away on the wind Hope crushed like refugees on our shore Smashed in the face of lust for power Far from the guns from which they fled Dreams lie broken, scattered on the wire Your corruption seeps like acid on skin Burning up the people we wished to be Eating the very soul of this sacred place So that the red heart has but a faint beat Art is pillaged and culture condemned We are blackened by your casual evil The fair go lies broken on the ground Your fires char our peoples’s birthright The ghost of the 1940s walks this land First peoples abandoned, ignored, cheated Everything you touch sickens like the plague Greed like gangrene eats our country’s flesh You speak of the bush but steal its life A billion dead creatures your legacy Their dying screams scars our soul Innocence destroyed by your half truths You talk of God but worship Mammon Know the cost of all but value of nothing You talk of family with serpent tongue Hypocrisy so thick God would choke We await the day of final retribution Where powerful will meet judgement Where the deniers and climate criminals Will burn for their sins in the fires of hell About this poem: Written after the 2019 fires which were exacerbated by the Morrison Govt in its refusal to lead on climate or to listen to fire management experts. This government is undeniably evil with its actions deliberately & consciously contributing to the death of millions globally.
