BIG PLANS

Big Plans

These black railroad tracks,
after the snow has melted,

sprawling in every

direction, where a

hobo lays his head on a

rail and listens for

any life that might

be in there, to tell him of

the next arrival.

And his partner, the

skinny scarecrow with the sleight

hitch in his giddy-

up, has acquired, some-

how, a fresh goose-berry pie

that was cooling on

a window sill, some-

where, and he’s got plans for the

next town, pal, big plans.

Joining the Game

Under a late sun, everything sour and wet,

a dog chasing ducks (who occasionally

turn and snap back), through the rust

and bronze-colored leaves where

squirrels can also be seen, now

and then, joining the

game and then,

before

you

know

it,

Night

has brought

out all her

crickets and fireflies

and whippoorwills, and wants you to

stay up all night with her and her

strange carni children.

Needed, Urgently. Somewhere.

It must have been just a dream
about a strange air-craft that seemed to be
a hybrid of a plane and a helicopter

and had just then wrecked into my fourth floor
attic apartment’s French balcony doors (a cheap
but swank little place overlooking
one of the city’s public parks).

And then this dashing, daring-do caricature
of an R.A.F. type pops up out of nowhere
and inquires, pardon me, sir, you wouldn’t
happen to be Jason Ryberg, the poet, would you? /

Why, yes I said. / Excellent, he replied,
you’re needed, urgently, sir. Please climb aboard
and strap yourself in while I get old Lizzy, here,
back in the air, in no time.

And of course I climbed aboard
and strapped myself in, because I’ve always
needed to be needed, urgently.

Somewhere.

Getting off the Ground

At that age,

you’re mostly dealing

with each other’s avatars

and public relations agents, anyway,

with always the hope, of course,

that the real thing

peaks through, here and there,

until the masks

and shields and deflectors

are no longer needed,

that is if the whole thing

is even structurally

sound enough

to support itself

under the stress of its own weight,

let alone get off

the ground.

Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection of poems is Fence Post Blues (River Dog Press, 2023). He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a Billy-goat named Giuseppe and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.