John Drudge’s poetry is marked by compassion, clarity, and deep human insight. His work often reflects resilience, healing, and the search for meaning in everyday life. Blending personal reflection with universal themes, his poems explore love, memory, and transformation.
The Long Road Home
The light
Streams in
Through the trees
And the air tastes
Of rain
And old stone
You walk past
The broken fences
And the small bent houses
Where dogs sleep
In the shade
And somewhere
A train
Is calling its way
Through autumn fields
And you remember
How far it is
Between the place you left
And the place
You belong
Tides
Alone in this narrow room
The walls pressing in
Closer and closer
And the air thick
With things I cannot say
Too heavy in the mouth
Stones in the chest
Stones in the rain
And who to reach for now?
No hand
No mercy
Drowning in the silence of God
In silent water waiting
And looking for anything
To break the dim air
To tear loneliness like bread
To lift me up
From the flood of my own tide
Worn Smooth
She fell ill
When he was a boy
Now he ties her shoes
Slowly
Like he’s done
A thousand times
The laces worn smooth
And soft as thread
From rain
And walking nowhere
She hums out of tune
While the kettle rattles
On a single coil
That still works
The room slants
In the morning light
Smelling of toast
And liniment
And something
Like hope
They laugh at nothing
And everything
And the way the ceiling
Sags
But doesn’t fall
Outside
The world moves
Too fast
But in here
It’s always
Just enough
Beyond
When the last breath
Loosens its hold
And the body
Releases its borrowed weight
You step into a place
Without edges
Where silence is warm
And light remembers you
And the small self
That worried over time
Melts into something vast
And familiar
Like returning to an ocean
You had never left
Love
It’s the last cigarette
In the rain
Burning slowly
In the hollow of a hand
A fierce lantern
In fog-choked lanes
Blazing against
The crooked night
And though the world
Gnaws its own bones
And the black dogs
Bark at every door
The heart still drums
Its red thunder
And hope rises
Into the smoke-hung air
While time
Broken and rusted
Forgets itself
Bio:
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 eight books of poetry: “March” (2019), “The Seasons of Us” (2019), New Days (2020), Fragments (2021), A Long Walk (2023), A Curious Art (2024), Sojourns (2024), and Too Close to the Shore (2025). 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.
