Lost, Chased
I’m ten, dreaming of being chased by
a faceless horror, through
the woodlands of my youth,
where I knew every path and patch,
spending all non-school days
roaming these woods.
There was the need to build a fort,
my space, home, hidden from passers-by,
leery of anyone invading this territory.
I’d fall asleep planning construction,
then dream of running through familiar turf,
from a demon I never saw.
Sixty years later,
I fall asleep planning tomorrow’s attempt to
write something meaningful or play golf.
I drive to a pier, get on a small sailboat with friends.
We sail to “Pleasure Island” –
like Pinocchio I wander off and get lost in a
Disney World on steroids.
At each new set the surroundings
seem to be molting.
There are characters that want to do me harm.
I need to get back to the boat,
my friends, be able to find my car,
and now it turns out I don’t have the keys.
This bothers me as much as the imminent danger.
I wake as I did as a child, soaked,
with a migraine of fear and my heart pounding,
knowing this is it for the night.
The only difference seems to be the mobility of
the silver Honda Accord,
that has taken me far enough from home,
that there is no fort,
and I have no idea where I am.
Craig Kirchner thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. He has had two poems nominated for the Pushcart, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. After a writing hiatus he was recently published in Decadent Review, New World Writing, Wild Violet, Ink in Thirds, Last Leaves, Literary Heist, Ariel Chart, Lit Shark, Cape Magazine, Flora Fiction, Young Ravens, Chiron Review, Valiant Scribe, and several dozen other journals.
