Carl Scharwath’s thesis on duality is piqued in well-crafted miniscule phrases that bear testimony to imagery.
1959
Two children plaster forms
A decorum of the 1950’s
Embellishment, quietly grace
The family road trip.
Baseball cards on the floor
Gum under the seat
A façade of happiness
As billboards swoop by.
Telephone wires, a dizzying array of surrealistic lines crossing the clouds and pointing the way. Last-chance gas stations, diners with dead-end jobs, the radio static filled with a revival preacher, admonishing the listeners to repent. Everything turns to Utopia.
Mom in the front seat
Dreams of a new washing machine
Perhaps a new house coat
And a husband who would love her again.
Father, eyes straightforward
Thinks of the next two martini-lunch and
An evening rendezvous with his young secretary
In a secret hotel close to home.
Like a thick novel with empty pages-four lives down the highway in a metal casket with tail fins. Route 66 attractions beckon for attention and a sparked conversation. This nuclear family just one of the forgotten many in the proto-industrialization of a historical timeline-a contaminated generation.
Limerence
You are alone
I am ashamed
We walk among the lavender, wilting in the heat of our passion. Wisteria releases tears of dew drops on a lover’s pillow encased in short-lived memories. Tattered vulnerabilities, crushed velvet revelations filter through the flower field. This is the territory of asbestos laced pollen. The martyred pathway sinful and filled with misty lies under the shadows while the world is changing.
The end of the beginning
Is the beginning of the end
Carl Scharwath’s poetry, short stories, interviews, essays, plays and art photography have appeared in 150+ journals. His photography was featured on the cover of six journals. His poetry books are – ‘Journey To Become Forgotten’ (Kind of a Hurricane Press) and ‘Abandoned’ (ScarsTv). His first photography book was recently published by Praxis. He is the art editor for Minute Magazine, Poetry Editor for TL Publishing Group, and a competitive runner and 2nd degree blackbelt in Taekwondo.
