Notes on Lost Highway The mind falls apart like a woman without shoes. I sit by the window with an antler. Found it out down there. In the pines. My ventricle from heaven. Bone-bright. Tough. Unlike the frayed plate of my thumb nail, or any other comfort I’ve been known to stroke in the dark. Lit with lightning. Often I think of Townes Van Zandt before he was famous. A mad boy. Whose parents loved him. Enough to get him electric shock therapy behind mint-green doors. As his molars bit the leather stick, where did his spirit go? They say grief is a place. Mine’s a desert. Here’s another allusion to a lost, brilliant man who could have been my father. I have as many as the day is long. As the dusk is coyote-hungry. A mentor once said why don’t you listen to something else when I wanted her to ask who–not what–are you looking for? Oh I have fortified, one might say calcified myself against the heat. Sigils tattooed on my fingers. Poison to sedate my hands. From killing all the deer. Each one a day. Galloped through me. Clare Welsh This poem was inspired by the musician's drawing, Lost Highway. Townes Van Zandt (American) 1980. Click here to view it. Clare Welsh is a writer and visual artist living in Pittsburgh. Her most recent poems can be found in The Los Angeles Review and The Southeast Review. She is working on a book.
1 Comment
Joy A Dube
5/5/2024 05:36:37 pm
Loved this a lot. Like the terse, short lines. And there is loss here, too. The father … the missing father.
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
The Ekphrastic Review
COOKIES/PRIVACY
This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies. Opt Out of CookiesJoin us: Facebook and Bluesky
July 2025
|