# August Challenge - "Travel"



## Baron (Aug 6, 2012)

The theme for the August challenge, suggested by *toddm*, is *"Travel".

*Remember that you may approach the subject in whatever way you wish, though of course site rules apply. If you are unsure of the challenge rules please read the 'stickies' at the top of the board; it is disheartening to disqualify people for things like a trivial edit, but the rules will be applied.

This challenge will close on the *20th August 2012. 

**Please make sure that your work is properly formatted before pressing the submit button. Work edited after posting may be excluded from the challenge. Do not post comments in this thread. Any discussions should be posted in the Bards' Bistro.
*


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## aj47 (Aug 10, 2012)

*To Far Away Lands**

I* sit,
*w*atching the birds
*a*nd insects take the breeze -
*n*othing holding them up but air,
*T*hinking.

*T*ruly
*o*pen to wild
*f*lights of the fantastic, 
*l*ike, "What if I could soar like they?"
*Y*earning.

*A*bove
*l*akes and forests.
*O*r even up mountains.
*F*eeling the wind carrying me
*t*hrough life.

*T*aking
*o*ver my will,
*f*reeing me from myself,
*a*llowing me to stop and smell
*r*oses.

*L*et me
*a*lways be free;
*n*ever held to one place.
*D*espite winglessness, I will fly,
*s*omeday.


​


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## Deleted member 49710 (Aug 11, 2012)

*how young are you*

splitting the wind with my hand held level
above: sky, clouds, incessant sunlight
below: everstreaming asphalt, eighty miles per hour
box shadow on the shoulder and a thousand
places we just pass through, dots I find in the atlas    
while you drive me to the coast

nights in the back of the truck
in Canada where we’re old enough
to buy bad whiskey, smoke a million cigarettes,
drunktalk in rest stops and parking lots 
where we kiss for the camera, make an index of us:
one summer, three weeks, two hundred pictures

with dawn the heat condenses
wakes us to the next day’s roads
the distance between places where we are
nineteen and no longer searching
for anything, destination decided and no need
for any other home


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## toddm (Aug 12, 2012)

*Train Ride*

Cold raindrop tears are sliding across the window,
blurring the bucolic Minnesota scenery:
barns and silos, trees and fences, 
mournful fields of brittle cornstalks.
The cows, having grown weary of passing trains,
turn their horned heads absently away.

The sky has been grey now for over a week.
The rain had stopped once, during the wedding,
only to return and soak us all outside the church
waving farewell to the bride and groom.

They seemed to be such a happy couple: 
she, with rosy cheeks and dimpled elbows,
floated in euphoria on the arm of her beloved
who, although red-faced from all the attention, 
merrily grinned with all his teeth.

The world is looking brighter outside my window;
the sun has worked its way around the clouds.
We pass by golden fields of dancing wheat
rejoicing in the warmth of the widening sunshine.
The train pulls into the station at Hastings;
two more stops and I will be home.


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## Fats Velvet (Aug 12, 2012)

Gary, IN

I pass Gary the way a war tourist
keeps a laminated passport;
observe a corpse of a city safely
from I94.

Chicago is third generation immigrant
with a scholarship to Harvard;
somehow Gary never graduated
from American dream to college.

Gary fell hard on hard times;
the apartments without windows
reveal the sky behind the skyline
like a hollow eyed addict
wearing a suit of soot and grime.

It seems impossible that Gary has a City Hall,
as if the Romans defeated Carthage,
marched the citizens off as slaves,
salted the surrounding country,
but let its monuments remain.

I suppose Gary is the ghost of a ghost,
so profoundly dead it cannot impose a haunting
on the teeming living, on the road to Detroit.


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## obi_have (Aug 13, 2012)

*Recalculating Drive Time*

I checked my route on Google Maps
for I was not aware
of how much time that would elapse
to go from here to there.


But they don't know that on the way
there is this certain thicket
where if I see a nice bouquet
I'll stop my car and pick it.


And anytime I'm in the car
and headed out this way
the ice cream shoppe is not too far,
it's just a slight delay.


Then Exit 90, be aware
for after my dessert,
I have to hit the rest stop there
(cuz lactose makes me hurt).


By then I'm down to quarter tank,
the point where, as a rule,
I make a detour to the bank
to get some cash for fuel.


Google Maps is on my phone
But I'll keep it in my pocket,
The total drive time that is shown... 
(Pshhhh, right!) 
...If yer' drivin' in a rocket!


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## lcg (Aug 14, 2012)

*That World very far*

Are you tired of searching for that perfect place,
Where these sufferings and tortures finally desist?
Then let me take you to a world very far, a sky so new.
Where you will again smile and hope will still exist.

That is the place where worries cease to have any effect,
And the glorious nature still has the power to woo,
There, you will again smile, and hope will still exist.
Let me take you to that world very far, that sky so new.

You must be wondering that if I am crazy,
There is no such place where the your pessimism cannot persist,
Just let me show you that world very far, that sky so new.
There you will smile again, and hope will still exist.

Oh! You don’t need much for this journey.
A small travel inside to find the Universe which is true,
Then, you will again smile, and hope will still exist.
Inside you is that world very far, the sky so new.

Waiting to be conquered and ruled by your dictates.
Its yours!! Move fast and discover it, do not resist.
There inside you, lies that world so pretty, and the sky so new.
Where you will again smile and hope will still exist.


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## Walter Wego (Aug 19, 2012)

*Travel*

I walk down this lane,
This long, meandering lane
I've come from several,
Twists, turns, branches
Forks in the roads,
And there is always a new path
Never ending, always challenging
Wondering what's next
Or why we keep walking
This is a labyrinthine existence
But we keep walking and walking
Because we know not what's 
At our journey's end
But we love the travel


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## Chesters Daughter (Aug 19, 2012)

*Letting Go*

I stare mesmerized
at a last lifeless leaf
clinging to bare branch.
How alike we are,
brittle,
yet still hanging on.

Afraid of feeling too much,
my thumb caresses
then depresses
the button to deliver
morphine melancholy.

Let's talk waves.
Not the subtle lapping
of sunlit shore
as sea embraces sand.
No soothing sounds
to ease the soul
into somnolence.
There's no place for serenity
in this discussion.

Let's talk swells.
Impulses
that suffuse the nervous system.
Each neuron passing 
a silent scream to the next;
starting out as sadistic whispers
escalating into breakers
to batter broken shores
rendering innards a battlefield.

Now, we're talking.

Incessant crashes swallow
the sand in the hourglass,
flip after flip lost in raging storm.
Every second an eon,
while the waves never waver.

Intravenous sandbags 
do not buffer
the ceaseless onslaught
and a roaring ocean's rhythm
rocks and rolls ragged edges.

From beneath drooping lids
I watch winter wind coax
the lone straggler to let go.

As a tsunami washes over 
inept opiate barriers,
I follow that lonely leaf's lead
and raise canvas to capture
the frigid breeze
that I pray will escort
the essence of this vessel
to a land unplagued
by contrary seas.


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## Jeko (Aug 20, 2012)

*My Mind*

Once, with light and day behind
I started walking inside my mind.
I saw a land, and I saw a sea
and I saw a hill, and I saw a tree.

Under said tree, a scruffy man sat,
and said scruffy man had a scruffy little hat.
He stared at me with both eyes mad
and said, 'I'm the one that hates your dad.'

Anon, the man was quite away
and after came a girl who wanted to play.
She had spirits, rich togs and played on the tree
and said, 'I'm the one that fills them with glee.'

While parting, the girl passed a sudden ship
that suddenly sliced through the land with a _rip!
_And on it the Captian bellowed from above;
he said, 'I'm the one that breaks their love.'

Then from the brig, another bold soul
came, a woman, and carried a bowl
filled with water, filled to the brim.
She said, 'I'm the one that hates the sin.'

And then the sky
Blue 
Clouds
Crashed around
And I saw the gates of heaven open above
Seven lampstands
Angels
God
and he said,
'I am'

Since then I have not walked inside
my mind_, _or walked side by side
with all the people I know so well,
and the one from whom I fell_.
_


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## HKayG (Aug 20, 2012)

*Into the Wide World

T*ravel to see the sights of the world.
*R*are are the moments of gleeful travel
*A*s the world of work stops those who wish to go.
*V*istis to Monastries, waterfalls and cultures unknown that
*E*veryone should get a chance to see.
*L*ife is meant for enjoying all the wide world.


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## Baron (Aug 21, 2012)

This challenge is now closed.


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