Four Sublime Poems by John Drudge

 

Love’s Losses

 

Taking notes

From an internal sky

Insisting

On our own suffering

With desire

Exchanging one pain

For another

In the dark awkward

Corners

Of ourselves

Where we question

Certainty

In the aftermath

Of destruction

With the pieces

Of our striving

Falling fast

And hard

Into the tragedy

Of each new

Love

Slow Down

 

I work to live

I do not

Live to work

I find

Slowness

Is the key

To finding

One’s rhythm

With the beat of nature

In our hearts

And the simple joys

Found in moments

Of fine wine

And new found cheeses

From the Loire valley

Living life as priority

Not ambition

Rejoicing

In the pleasure

Of taking things

As they come

Measured

With every action

Magnified

By a delicate

Intentional peace

And living

How we’d like life to be

Now

 

Off

 

The fundamentals

Of death

Are simple

And to the point

No sense in beating

Around the bush

We are here

And then we are

No more

The ending unimportant

The fundamentals

Of everything

A flickering

Of a battered eye

And a shivering

At the core

Us

 

The stories

We tell ourselves

Are the lives

We create

Each one unique

In essence

In and of itself

Unto itself

Rolling into

A flattened tomorrow

Lost in the tale

Of something

Beyond redemption

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 four books of poetry: “March” (2019), “The Seasons of Us” (2019), New Days (2020), and Fragments (2021). 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.