My Voice | Carlyle R. Phelps

My Voice:

The writer’s idiom is to find your voice.
You never know where you’ll find it;
Sometimes under the California sunshine;
Other times in a West Virginia coal mine;
Even the occasionally still New York City skyline.
Me, I found mine at a busted “hotdog hoagie” sign—

In a quiet no-light town where trees talked more than neighbors;
Where the red barn was the only notable landmark;
Where an overgrown house was the stuff of local nightmares;
Where we’d walk to the bus stop, up hill, both ways.
Everybody knew everybody…until we didn’t.
The soul of the town left right along with the employment.

First the coal was snubbed as an Undesirable—
The prisons came making the work force unreliable.
Then the drugs rushed in making it unlivable;
Half-passed-alive, my friends escaped from rehab—
Brilliant musicians silenced by a needle plunging sound—
I don’t know if they made it out above or below the ground.

So I wandered to and fro, lookin’ for a home—
Lookin’ for a distinctive place I could call my own.
I passed through what they call the city of brotherly love,
I didn’t overly mind how much they’d push and shove,
But then I prit’near got into a knife fight with a hooker—
Well, I got outta there in a flash…perhaps even a bit quicker.

I moseyed on over to the west, just north of La La Land,
Where Tom Waits growled, “The Piano Has Been Drinking,”
And before I knew it, I was bottles deep without thinkin’—
At this Russian wedding I promised new wardrobes to everyone—
A story told by gentlemen I struggle to recall.
I struggle to recall much of anything amidst the Cali vodka fog.

I staggered to the South West with time’s weight on my back—
Hoping I’d find the wisdom I previously lacked.
I don’t know about wisdom, but I sure found beauty.
Beauty in God’s providence peekin’ above the horizon;
Beauty in the desert flowers from Phoenix to Tucson;
Beauty, I’m happy to say, on the faces of loved ones each day.

I’ve been all around and I’ve seen extraordinary things,
But when I sit down to write in the dialect of a poem,
I’m back listening to the whispering trees
Spinning a yarn about the horse escapin’ the red barn—
Galloping up the hills, past the horror house on the left—
Tellin’ tales of the “hotdog hoagie” advertised for $4.99.

Linktree:
https://linktr.ee/carlylephelpspoetry

My book on Amazon:
https://a.co/d/afUjZF3