Lonely Towns

An Omitted Work

Lonely towns, a hiding place

For fugitive hearts and a lonely face 

A river straddles the north

and slivers and gurgles And keeps me

company as I traverse imaginary hurdles 

This is the place where I was born 

and raised and broken and battered and 

scorned 

It's where I've hoped

It's where I've sworn 

In lonely towns, we cannot grow 

For we've already capitulated to the lies we tell

About who resides here and who does not

To stay in a lonely town is to let the heart

sink and rot 

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

This was an interesting piece for me. It brought up visions of childhood and visits to a little mill town where a few of my siblings were conceived. There's an old dam there that I used to climb to look out over the river and fish. It's illegal to do that now. It's about seventy feet above the solid concrete and I crawled up it on my hands and knees at 5 years old just to be with my dad. It's a lonely and backwards place left to stagnate after the mills closed and the jobs all dried up.

[alanwgraham]

I like this a lot. You have done a great job of describing the bleakness of many of our decaying towns. I particularly like the line starting, this is the place - simple and strong.
All the best,
Alan

[John the Baptist]

Both loneliness and solitude dwell within ourselves. Geography is secondary.