Chapbook Update 6: Elizabeth S. Wolf

This is a poem from Secret Indictments, written by Robert Andrew Bartlett Sr. Mr. Bartlett resides in North Carolina. He writes about his ex- and his experience with the courts. I’m not a fact checker: I’m a poet. It’s a compelling story, beautifully written. This is his truth.

Dead End

Turn left at the ranch house with the colored squares

Just beyond the bridge over the State highway.

There’s grass there, in scattered lawns

and unmowed fields

 

The cow pastures of Bowlers Farm scattered

When the State ran the highway through the middle.

 

Continue through the woods ‘til the road curves right.

Pass the playground, bench and bathhouse on your left.

A short dirt road to nowhere on the right side.

 

Another road ascends steeply through the trees

to Federal Furnace Road near the bus stop.

 

Monton Park Road continues to loop the pond.

But the pavement turns left on Burgess Road.

Lined with wooden houses with smoking chimneys

.

Three doors down past my family’s house, Burgess Road,

Like my life, goes downhill and comes to a dead end.