Robert S King's "No Road Ends Forever"

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                                                                             © marie c lecrivain




Robert S. King lives in Athens, GA. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published eight poetry collections, most recently Developing a Photograph of God (Glass Lyre Press, 2014) and Messages from Multiverses (Duck Lake Books, 2020). His personal website is www.robertsking.info.




Many roads go through Déjà Vu.

Some speed through Euphoria,

whose streets below the surface,

like all, are mud or dust

and remind of Purgatory.


Our blisters prove no road is kind,

just kind of lost or twisted into ruts,

yet bound on the never-ending way

to Wanderlust, a large city of the mind

where footprints and tracks

go beyond dead ends.


One end leads to another,

and no road we could take

is clear and smooth, save one

passing quickly through Epiphany.

Many have potholes deep as graves.


Let signs along the way be suggestions,

not laws. Careful not to obey

stop signs in Detour and Deadwood.

If the eye can see ahead,

wheel and foot follow,

dragging their heavy memories behind,

watching for those holes

where the dead weight of their lives

might rest in peace.


And at some crossroad near Forever,

puzzled by a map of tangled roads,

there is no rest for those from Weary

who confuse the road to Paradise

with the highway to Hell.


© 2022 Robert S. King

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