Six Poems by John Drudge

 

https://youtu.be/2t6_vTdEZHE?si=rPyqJt2m9kFEvy0Q

Inside Pierre Berton’s Abandoned Estate | Forgotten Home of a Canadian Legend

The Waning Sun  

 

Growing older  

Beneath indifferent skies 

As time thins  

Both voice and limb  

I rise with the morning  

Steadfast as the tides  

And what was sorrow  

Lies quiet now  

Like a sea  

Smoothed by dawn  

Where age  

Is a thistle in the throat  

And every clock barks louder 

Against the sharp nudges  

Of regret  

And time once a shadow  

Walks beside me  

My course well-sailed  

My stars well-read  

And my heart unbroken  

By the weight  

Of all I dared to feel  

The stoic hedge  

The waning sun  

And the wind in the eaves  

Speaking as it always does 

Because the dying of the light  

Isn’t frightened by the fire

Moving Pictures 

 

Standing resolute 

In the face  

Of our thrownness  

Into a world 

Not of our choosing  

With fear rising 

Not from the future itself 

But from possibility 

With the shape of others 

And the shape of the dawn  

Dissolving into a clearing  

Where being discloses itself  

And anxiety is a signal  

For openness  

On ground to be claimed  

Owned and endured 

Beyond the trembling of self  

Into the dizziness of freedom 

And the vertigo of becoming 

Not in the abstract 

But in the infinite possibility  

Of choice 

The inward leap into the absurd 

Embracing subjectivity 

Where reason fails  

And despair threatens 

Where we become real 

Repeatedly 

In anguish and resolve 

Standing naked before God 

Choosing nothingness  

Where nothing is written 

Condemned to be free 

In a world that demands  

Movement

Les Deux Magots 

 

The chairs at Deux Magots  

Resist comfort  

Complicit in the consciousness  

Of the place  

Angular and indifferent  

Where existence unfolds  

Not in dialogue  

But in the silent weight  

Between glances … 

When I arrived  

The tables were set out  

Like always  

Hard light on stone  

The men smoked  

And said little  

The women looked past them  

Or at the edge of the cup  

You could hear  

The clink of a spoon  

And the wind at the awning  

I had a drink  

And it was good  

Not because it mattered  

But because it was there  

And I was thirsty  

A man in a hat read the paper  

Without turning the page  

Two young boys walked by laughing 

And no one looked at them  

All very real 

But very far away  

And if you stay long enough  

The day shrinks down  

To ashtrays and hands

Fado  

 

A sorrowful river of song 

Spills from the lips  

Of the broken-hearted  

Winding through alleyways  

Where bare lights   

Sizzle like old memories  

And guitars weep 

With the weight of longing  

Of sailors lost at sea  

And lovers swallowed by time  

Their voices rising  

Like broken reflections  

Against a deep night sky  

Melancholy  

Made into music  

Saudade made flesh  

As we listen closely 

Cradling each lament  

As if it were our own   

And carrying the ache  

Of centuries  

With us

Leaving 

 

Dying is not theatrical 

It doesn’t arrive  

Like a metaphor 

Not the swoon 

Or the dark velvet 

We like to pretend 

It’s small betrayals 

Of the body  

As the days thin 

Cataloguing absurdities 

A chipped plate 

The soft rot in the fruit bowl 

The way the light  

Comes through the blinds  

Like slits  

In a shuttered mind 

Pressing on  

In the hallway  

Between appointments  

During a news segment  

You weren’t watching  

With papers left unsigned  

Milk left out  

A message flashing  

On your phone 

And the slow bright ache  

Of leaving a room  

That’s still yours

Pierre Berton’s House 

 

The house was old and empty 

Tucked away in Kleinburg  

Up in Ontario  

Where the trees grew close  

And the land sloped down  

Into a gully  

Filled with weeds and wind 

Shingles curling like parchment  

Moss clinging to stone 

Like remorse to memory 

Windows gazing blankly  

Over encroaching brush  

A forgotten corner  

Of Canadian letters 

The clatter of typewriter keys 

No more  

No more books about Canada  

And men  

And mountains and war 

It was a strong house once  

But things don’t stay  

The way they were  

Nothing does 

The gardens have all grown wild 

An elegy sculpted by time  

A shrine to vanished purpose  

With the ghosts of intellect  

Drifting like autumn smoke  

And the soul of a nation  

Ever reluctant to remember  

Averts its eyes 

But they say there’s poetry  

In abandonment  

At least

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.