JOHN DRUDGE

 

The Voyage

 

Pain and suffering

Sculptors of our voyage

Harsh and unforgiving

Carving contours

Of resilience

Through tear-streaked trails

Unearthing depths

Furnaces of adversity

Tempering steel

In shadows cast

By the setting sun

Unveiling beauty

And vulnerability

A poignant melody

Heard through cracks

In hearts

Where compassion

Finds passage

And wisdom’s seeds

Find fertile ground

Beneath the hues

Of broken beauty

And a shared humanity

Stumbling

 

Another Day

 

Setting out

From yesterday’s

Tomorrow

Another day

Burning

In the mid-day heat

Wandering

Toward yet another

Mirage

As the gates

Of the town

Disappear

With each measured step

Into the hissing

Sun

 

In the Meadow

 

The gone glory

Of forced living

Catching a ride

On a unicorn’s horn

Cotton tails and antlers

In the sweeping

Wilderness

Where tiny flowers grow

In the meadow

Above the valley

Beneath the tree line

Where we said goodbye

To our yesterdays

Together

As the wind gathered

 

The Desolate Road

 

Detached and neutral

Devoid of ideas

Opinions leveled

Frazzled nerves

Face to face

With an unsteady self

Squirming

Before the void

Desolate in longing

At the feet of regret

Like a flattened nickel

On a dead-end road

 

Into A New Sun

 

Bracing steel-like

In the winds

Of creeping change

As fountains of hope

Run dry

Bewailing our impotence

On alters

Of the flagrant

And the damned

With the words of dead poets

Drifting on shifting winds

In the cactus-grown deserts

Of our making

Old before our time

In the madness

Of truth’s undoing

Of destruction and still birth

Of lies and betrayal

Over uncreated dreams

And the feathered

Touch of time

Beyond pride

Contempt and ambition

With little need

For tepid virtues

Walking forward

Without stopping

Into another waiting sun

 

JOHN DRUDGE

 

JOHN DRUDGE: John 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.