Six Poems by John Drudge

 

A New Day 

 

The beat 

Of the old café 

By the Odeon  

Clips off the stone 

In an echo  

Round the bend 
Lost 
On its way 
To the boulevard 

Poets and painters 
Once young 
Writers and guttersnipes 
Now shadows 
In the early mist 
Fading whispers 
Of what was 

As I order another pastry 
The clang 
And clatter 
Of morning 
Turning slowly 
With another day 
Slipping into place 
In the neighbourhood

536 A.D.  

 

The blood-red rain 

Fell from clouds 

Of fine dust 

On the day 

The sun went out 

And a winter of drought  

Famine  

And plague 

Stirred  

On the edge of a world 

Cracking open 

Settling like ash  

On the precipice  

Of change

Burroughs 

 

He was another  

Kind of bible 

Another kind of thing 

Words and wind 

Stitched like scars 

Through time 

With too much meaning 

And too many tears 

He shut down 
Before the end 
Sealed the hatches 
Tight against the storm 
No need 
For attachment 
No glance back 
At what was left 
To unravel 
In the wake

After the War 

 

The damage done 
To innocence 
A slow 

Relentless assault 
On the senses 

Battle cries linger 
Echoes of wars 
Of attrition 
And expansion 
While blackened lungs 
Gasp for air 
Buried in fields of glory 
Beneath shelters 
Built of make-believe 

Victim and perpetrator 
Mirrors  

On a spinning wheel 
Pathways carved 
Through the rye fields 
Shell-shocked 
Their patterns repeating 
Like crop circles 
Traced by hands 
No longer steady 

In the din 
Between the sheets 
Where secret creatures lie 
Still 
After the war 
As night teeters 
On the edge 
Of all we’ve forgotten 
To mourn

Art as Life 

 

A curious joy 
Lingers along the river 
Mysteries of birth 
Woven into the strained shadows 
Of virtue 
Respectable only 
As far as the light allows 

Bendable as night 
It stretches toward 
The shores of certainty 
Where even Oscar Wilde 
Playing dominos 
Outside a French café 
Remains 
A fleeting silhouette 
Rarified 
Drifting in the purity of art 
Where beauty fuses 
With the ordinary 
And life becomes 
A canvas 
In the dimming hours

Bourdain 

Life can be messy 
Sometimes 
It’s where the greatest art 
Begins 
Unraveled and raw 
Unfortunate 
Possibly tragic 
But unsurprising  

In the end 

Suicide  

Holds no blame 
An aberration 
In the disorder 
Of frayed senses 
A mind 
Caught in the scatter 
Of broken moments 
Lost in the fragments 
Of a wind 

That never settles

  

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 seven books of poetry: “March” (2019), “The Seasons of Us” (2019), New Days (2020), Fragments (2021), A Long Walk (2023), A Curious Art (2024) and Sojourns (2024) . His work has appeared widely in 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.