Highways and Byways, I’ve Travelled to Find Myself: A Collection of Poetry

By Peter C. Fraser

This collection of poems covers many years of writing by the author. He started writing while in high school, encouraged by his English teacher, Evelyn Mecure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823007672

Book preview

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2023 Peter C. Fraser. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/14/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-0766-5 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-0767-2 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Dear Readers

When I contemplated this book of poetry I had several notebooks of writings to go through. I had at first, thought that trials and tribulations might make a good title but the more I worked with Highways and Byways, the more I felt it fit the poems better.

As you read through, you will find poems about Vietnam which I wrote for the therapeutic value of dealing with PTSD, especially with the sometimes overwhelming desire to just disappear and hit the road to anywhere but where I was. Many homeless Vets use this as a coping mechanism. For that reason I decided not to use trials and tribulations as a book title.

It seems each time I reviewed a poem; I ended up making a change to it so I had to stop the editing process several times. This has allowed me to delay and delay some more the publishing process until my publisher wondered if I was serious about putting this book out.

Finally we have agreed and it is now in your hands. I hope you enjoy these trial and tribulations that has become this book, The Highways and Byways I Have Travelled to find Myself.

I have also written of lost love and my great fortune of finding a special woman who has supported me with her love for 52 years. I would be remiss if I did not mention her here as I dedicate this collection to my wife, Brenda. A special shout out to my daughter, Emily Fraser Lewis, for her help in proofing and editing my cover and the contents and my niece, Jennifer Leigh for her helping to proof my text along with my sister Marianne Norris.

Many Thanks,

Peter C. Fraser

Contents

Highways and Byways

A Miracle Along Life’s Highway

A Split in the Road

Alone

Ancient Age

Back Roads and Side Streets

Answering the Highways Call

Battlefield

Beachfront Property

Call of The Road

Chestnut Street, Oak Street and Other Streets I wish I had Never Been On.

Closing Time

Comfort Inn

Highway Drifter

Journey

Lonely Journey

Making and Keeping Promises

Memories

Moving On

My Journey

On The Road

Spring

Travelling Man

Wealthy

Alone

Life

19 Year Old State of Mind

Angel Wings

Answers

Autumn Leaves

Beach Learning

Being alive

Blindness

Being Judgmental

Believing Your Own Lies

Changing the world

Firewood

Chasing Rainbows

Common Humanity

Complicated

Do You Wrong

Drinking in Self-Defense

Going Home

Grains of Sand

Homemade Wine Memories

Hug a Small Boy

Impossible

Life on the Rocks

Life’s Journey

Lightning Flashes

Lonesome

Mirror, Mirror on My Wall

Lost to a Drunk Driver

More Thoughts About Dying

Moth to the Flame

My Caring Angel

My Eulogy

My First New Car

My Old Man

My Thoughts About Dying

Park Bench Revelations

Passing Out

Poems

Rock and Roll Souls

Searching For You

Strike to The Heart

Talent

Surfing in God’s Love

Survivor

The In Between Years

The Meaning of Life

The Rain

Timex

Togetherness

Uncle Herman’s Visit

When God’s Angel Flies Close to the Earth

When I First Saw You

When You Die

Words

Whiskey Women

Wrong Places

The Vietnam War

Airborne Infantry One Oh One

An Old Marine

Basic Combat Load

Boyhood Adventure

Chris was in Heaven Before He Died

Down and Out in America

Dying in Vain

For Danny Ferry

Forever Nineteen

Forgotten Cigarettes

Making Thirty

Memories I Dream of from Battles Long Past

My Black Guardian Angel.

Nam’s Hell

My Woman is a Saint

Random Fire

Soaking My Soul

The Long Black Wall

The Vietnam Pot Luck Blues

Obituary of an Old Man

Covid

Angels In Blue

Covid

Dancing to The End of Eternity

Death on Today’s Battlefield

For the Love of Lauren

Listening and Hearing

Pandemic Blues

Saw it on Facebook

The Shelter in Place Covid Blues

What Did You Do Today, Girlfriend

Growing Up

Bike Racing Down Oak Hill

Bridge Diving

My Brother Jim Died

The Leetonia Train Station

Love

A Thousand and One

Angel With an Attitude

Being Alive

Breathing

Bridge

Catch a Falling Star

Cradle of Love

Crazy Glue

Dance me to the end of love

Dancing With Butterflies

Dreaming

God’s Good Intention

Holiday Surprise

I am what I am

Life’s Song

Love Chain

Love Song

Loving You

Moments

My Lady

On Our First Meeting

One With You

Paint the Sky with Stars

Prayers

Proximity

Renewing Our Love

Sanctuary

Self-immolation

Shadows

Singing the Blues

Still Loving You

Taken for Granted

The Leap

The First Time

The Power of Love

The Simplicity of a Prayer

Thriving

What Love is all About

Ups and Down of Love

When I First Saw You

You Hold The Power of Love

Your Damn Cat

Lost Love

A Poem With No Words

Alienation

Answers

Bed of a Viper

Betrayal

Ceiling Cracks and Other Memories

Complexities

Contemplation

Do You Wrong

Each Moment

Here Alone

I am no Longer What I Was

If Only

Impossible

Rain

It is Not All About You

Living and Loving

Love on the Rocks

Ohio Memories

On Losing You

The Grieving Place

Remember

Seeking Answers

The Coward’s Curse

The Living Dead

What Is

Without

Yesterday’s Tomorrow

Nature

A Moment

Firewood

A Rainy Day

At The Water’s Edge

Dawning at The Pond

Fearing Nothing

It Is Morning

Mill Creek Park

Perspective

Spring Came Early This Year

The Elephant and The Fly

The End of The Day

PTSD

Flashbacks

Festering Stone

Going Blind

Growing Old with Death

Heaven or Hell

It Was Never Me

Nocturnal Questions

Problem Solving

PTSD

Trapped

Society

A Symphony

Abnormally Normal

Another Poor Black woman’s story

At the Bottom

Black Skin

Bobo, the Craneman

Change Will Come

Change Came

Death of an Infant

Cold Snap In Texas

Coping

Dancing Alone, Together

Changing the world

Despair

Fearing Judgment

Fifty Years Ago

Growing Old in a One Room Flat

I Hear the Child Crying

In Jenny’s Shadow

Keeping Us Apart

Life is a Dance Floor

Lost and Found

My Legacy

My Prayer for a Dying Friend

My Soldier’s Homecoming

Out Of Place

Pawns in The Game

Pelican Pier

Possessions

Profit Margins

Second Amendment Right

Serious Drinking

Shoot to Kill

Springtime for Humanity

Teachers

The Final Judgment

The George Washington Bridge

The Hacker Man

The Immigrant’s Lament

The New Urban Life

The Rocky Road of Freedom

The Tempest

Truth

Urban Flowers

Youngstown’s Steel Mills

Ukraine

Rules Of Ground Warfare

An Offering of War

On the Apartment Building Collapse

Weapons of War

Poems

A Better Place

A Poet’s Confession

Admiring a Rose

After My Death

April Fools

Poets and Artists

Children of God

Etched in Stone

Fearing Judgment

In Our Humanity

Our Daughter’s Eyes

Jack Daniel’s Revelation

Jack Daniels for the Night

January in Ohio

Man Changer

Midnight Walk

No Coming Back

Forgive the Fool

Possessed

Power

Sometimes Goodbye it too Good a Word

The Day After

The Hand of God

The Time of Falling Leaves

There ain’t No Getting Over You

Walking in The Rain

On Your Turning 70

Highways and Byways

A Miracle Along Life’s Highway

I met an old man

along the highway,

his clothing was old,

all tattered and worn.

He needed a shave

and a bath wouldn’t have hurt.

I offered to walk with him for awhile,

but he soon had to stop.

A pebble was in his shoe

from the hole in the sole,

which he tried to cover

with a piece of cardboard.

He smiled at me

as he adjusted the hole in his sock,

then said his luck was a little bad.

Said he had been a dad

and worked in the mill

when they once made steel.

But they closed the mill,

his wife left with his girl

and the bank took his house

and so he had no place to go.

Yesterday he had a quarter

but it fell through the hole

that it made in his pocket.

So all that he had in this world

was what he wore on his back

and he’d trade that for a meal.

We were by a McDonalds,

but he would not go in.

said he didn’t want to spoil it

for folks who were eating.

So I went inside for him,

bought him a Big Mac.

When I went out to him

and gave him the sandwich,

along with the change

from a ten dollar bill.

He sat on the curb

and began to eat.

That’s when he said

he knew today was the day

when his luck would change.

Told me he was heading

down to the Market Street Bridge

to jump into to the river below.

But all that changed

when I spoke to him.

Seems nobody had spoken to him

or paid him no mind for such a long time.

He felt he no longer mattered,

that he’d be better off dead.

So he was wrestling in his soul

whether to jump or not.

So when I spoke to him

and said Morning

things began to change.

The Big Mac was just the beginning,

he was sure of it now

because he found what was missing,

what made living worth living,

a friendly face that cared enough

to simply say Good Morning.

Then as he started to leave,

as he was walking away,

he paused and looked back,

I swear as the sun wrapped around his head,

I could see his face was changed,

his tattered clothing was gone

and I swear he had a lamb on his shoulders

and a shepherd’s staff in his hand.

For a moment I looked away,

then just like that,

he was gone.

A Split in the Road

I love Robert Frost,

but unlike his road,

my road has a three-way split.

One left,

one right

and one going straight ahead.

As with any decision

I find it best to sit a spell

to contemplate the enormity of deciding.

Which way one is to go

is critical to life’s journey.

Like so many roads I have travelled,

nothing is meant to be simple.

I really don’t like to drink wine alone,

although on occasions I have.

Those tend to be the times,

when nobody is around

to tell me when to stop,

until I’ve had more than enough.

So I procrastinate in my decision

on which way to go,

probably because I have no wine to drink.

Then night engulfs me

letting me know this is a good spot

to spend the night.

I know tomorrow I will have to decide,

but who knows,

perhaps when the sun returns,

it will have forgotten the split in the road

and I will have travelled on past it,

oblivious to Robert Frost

and all the things that come

from having to make a decision

regarding a split along the road of life.

Alone

I’ve crossed perhaps a thousand thresholds,

passed through at least twice as many doorways.

Whether I was entering or leaving,

it made little difference.

I’ve been left to myself so often,

my only solitude has been the highway.

I walked down so many long, lonely roads

searching for a place to lay my head.

It seems to me almost always,

I have had to sleep alone.

Yet I knew I was destined to find,

somewhere in the vastness of out there,

someone to be my own.

Perhaps it will be you telling me to stop,

telling me to pause,

to talk with you for awhile.

Taking your time

and giving of yourself

to chase away my loneliness

with a glass of wine,

a bite to eat

and with the wonder of your smile.

Then you can take your time to tell me again

when tomorrow finally appears,

there is nothing to fear.

You will give me the strength I need

not to run away.

A simple kiss is a solid foundation

to build one’s future on.

With that kiss you make me strong,

strong enough to be your man,

as you are strong enough to make me yours.

Today I took my first step

to no longer being highway bound.

With you by my side

I know that I can,

so that I will no longer

be alone.

Ancient Age

Seems I’ve taken to liking it so much

that I spend all day sipping it.

It has colored my days

a golden amber haze.

I don’t do much writing,

don’t do no crying,

don’t do no laughing,

don’t do much of anything.

Just spend my day sipping

Ancient Age from a mason jar.

Sitting in a rocking chair

going a little to the front

then a little to the rear.

Sitting and sipping the day away,

listening to some tunes

and keeping to myself.

Looking at the road

stretching to the horizon,

tempting me to go back to her.

It tempts me,

holding promises,

but gives me nothing.

Empty promises

that I’ve heard before.

Now, I know,

they are just that,

wordless and meaningless,

trying to get me back on the road

that I don’t want to travel anymore.

Because if I did,

I’d have to give up my Ancient Age.

Back Roads and Side Streets

I’ve been this way before,

travelling down some forsaken back road,

saying over and over to myself,

Nobody else was on that God-forsaken road,

there was nobody but me.

I wish I knew where I was going.

I have often said to myself.

I suppose one would say it’s ironic

but we all have had our side streets,

our back alleys

and our back roads we have had to travel.

Sometimes it seems we are destined

to travel the same road more than once.

Whatever, we have to keep going,

there can be no stopping,

or going back;

even if by chance you know

where this road will take you.

Those moments become moments we remember,

moments that truly are, only good as memories.

Even within those brief moments we live,

there are moments

that seem to make life worth living.

Moments we can possess in only the right now,

the present;

far too often they take flight and are gone;

as though they were heartbeats.

With tomorrow, there is only a promise,

and there is nothing as fickle

as the empty promise that tomorrow holds.

For as swiftly as it comes,

it will go.

Life holds no guarantee

that tomorrow will ever come.

The most fragile rose petal

is not as fragile as life.

That is why the highways,

the back roads

and side streets travelled throughout one’s life,

are what is your life,

and you must always remember,

it is all simply a gift from God.

Answering the Highways Call

The highway not travelled still calls out to me.

Where I have been so far in life,

has not satisfied my wanderlust.

Not knowing what is to be found,

that taste of the unknown

and the freedom that goes with it,

is a powerful aphrodisiac.

It is calling to me,

weakening my commitment to stay.

It places sand under my feet

and draws me towards the door.

It’s not that I don’t love you,

it’s just that I don’t love myself.

That combination breeds failure

in any relationship.

It was only a matter of time

before I left,