Five Stunning Poems by John Drudge

 

Beginnings

 

Over the dew kissed

Cobblestones

Beneath the pale facades

And charcoal rooftops

Of the quarter

Toward the entrance

To the park

With the trees aloof

And moody

In crepuscular light

And the sun breaking gently

Behind the fading darkness

Of the morning sky

I hold your hand

Tightly

As we walk in silence

Toward our own

New dawn

Glowing softly

And floating on the horizon

Like a mirage

Brothers

 

We should have stayed

Longer that night

We should have never

Said goodbye

We should have talked

Until the small hours

And should have

Been together

Until the dawn

Broke us down

From the inside

One from each other

Brothers

For one more day

Under a new sun

Letting Go

 

The goal 

Is to unlearn something

Everyday

To do nothing

Deeply

And to move beyond

The scratching madness

Of good and evil

The snapshots

Of our perceptions

Pinned

To the definitions

Of our desires

As we seek

Makeshift shelter

Behind the quick

Stolen kiss

Of a moment’s

Stillness

Rimbaud’s Footprints

 

He stumbled off the boat

Through the noise

And clatter

Of forlorn streets

Passed the cattle trucks

And smugglers

In a mongrel town

Like any other

With the mixing of blood

And tears

In the mid-day sun

The bars

Humming with hustle

As lost souls search

For any refuge

From the heat

The friction

Of crossroad strangers

Longing for salvation

Anxiety provoking

Like Aristotle’s nothingness

With the brooding threat

Of another slow war

Just around the corner

Stay

 

I’ve seen behind

The curtain

And most everything

Is irrelevant

A flat plate of dust

Scattering in the first

Hard wind

Because life is short

And you can’t really  

Be anything

You want to be

And time really does

Move on without you

There is no magic

On the other side

Of suffering

And sometimes things die

For no reason

Where fairness

Is for fairy tales

And sometimes

Things break down

On the far side

Of promises

John Drudge is a social worker working in the field of disability management and holds degrees in social work, rehabilitation services, and psychology.  He is the author of three books of poetry: “March” and “The Seasons of Us” (both published in 2019) and New Days (published in 2020). His work has appeared widely in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies internationally. John is also a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and lives in Caledon Ontario, Canada with his wife and two children.