Poetry: Selections from John Yamrus

the place smelled like the blues

 

it 

smelled of 

sweat and poverty 

and last night’s turnip greens. 

 

but, 

it’s where he 

did his best writing. 

 

poems 

filled with sadness 

 

and 

the agony of 

a shot glass left empty 

in a sink filled with dishes, 

tears and more than a little regret.

his poems

 

always 

tried to tackle 

the “big issues”...

 

Death, 

Life, Love, Good, Evil...

 

all the 

usual stuff 

that needs to be 

spelled with a capital letter.  

 

his only 

other goal in life 

was to one day be The Village Idiot.  

 

the poems tried hard, 

but never quite 

hit the mark.  

 

but, after 

he married Betty, 

she told him (every day of his life) 

 

in no 

uncertain terms, 

the town could stop the search.

John Yamrus’s career spans more than 50 years as a working writer. He has published 35 books (29 volumes of poetry, 2 novels, 3 volumes of non-fiction and a children’s book). He has also had nearly 3,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A book of his selected poems was just released in Albania, translated into that language by Fadil Bajraj, who is best known for his translations of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Pound and others. A number of Yamrus’s books and poems are taught in college and university courses. His most recent book is Selected Poems: The Directors (Concrete Mist Press)