Three Poems
R.T. Castleberry
[Total Pages: 4]
Castleberry Page 1

[Listen to readings of these poems.]

The Traveler at a Loss

Pulled to the streets,
like the night dog on its course beyond
the refinery fences and Four Corners,
I watch the casualty list grow
poets drunk in the crosswalk,
singers dying on the causeway.
Their stories,
refrains of weakness, of weariness,
are mine.
Their vocabulary, remorseless as rain,
is mine.

Stale until dawn,
I watch an emigrant moon traverse


a lane of live oaks and lantana,

August lilies blooming within the fog.
I travel with fist clenched,
a fine sharp knife, honed and wicked,
heavy in my back pocket.
In my writing bag
is a tattered map of southern France,
a mask of Stephen Crane, a mask of Townes Van
     Zandt.
Wrapped in a camouflage shirt
the key to last year's hotel,
the ticket to last month's train
bookmark a Douay bible.

A morning sun slices leaf-flooded lanes,
curves choked with sites
of church grounds, schoolyard, first house.
Unresolved, still restless