poet russ cavanagh

Tony couldn’t play pedal steel but he was a policeman who checked permits others required back then A wandering Spanish cock despite beautiful wife and home he revelled in the glamour of our music-making He’d disappear after gigs for a private performance with some lucky tourist sweating under his spell A pleasant yet despicable man I still think about his wife   CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh Matthew 5:27-28 - KJV 

i often sit thinking atop the stairs drawing on a rolled cigarette tonight a door hangs open despite this disappointing summer my light streams out from a bathroom as a cheap red awaits in an untidy room oh I fixed the stair light eventually but habit can be such a powerful thing    CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh

A to E to B to F# (a.k.a. Gb ) to C# (a.k.a. Db ) to G# (a.k.a. Ab ) to D# (a.k.a. Eb ) to A# (a.k.a. Bb ) to F to C to G to D and then back to A(men)     CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh

Cruising the reds I encountered a lady holding a bottle whilst clearly undecided over what would be her Friday night second. I suggested a current choix of mine, a quality quaff of Merlot discounted to a fiver. Expressing gratitude she went with my suggestion. The sample already in her grip was, she declared with haught, a favourite of her husband's and came in at "... £19 a bottle". "You did well to marry him," I could only reply.   CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh Hebrews 13:5 - KJV

I'm sat on a chair at a folding table in a near empty flat this autumn night, typing into a laptop and waiting to move what little furniture I have left. In my head just now I counted nineteen - a lifetime spanning three times as many years - discounting a couple of places I lived in a mere few months. Running on empty, like waking alone in an unfamiliar bed.    CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh 1 Corinthians 3:16 - KJV

I peered at a word sprayed in bright red where cobble met tarmac; couldn’t read what it said.  Butcher, baker, locksmith: all looked most perplexed to view such garish writing - this strange, elusive text.  One by one the public on bended knee they went; but none of us could figure just what the pavement.         CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh  

He told class how he'd put his dead cat on a tin tray wired to the electric. The idea was to jump-start it into the next of nine lives. Vets were unheard of among us poorer folks way back then. But not, apparently, Mary Shelley.   CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh

i stood before myself as a child sat apart not fully connected but not entirely without awareness of self i felt delight again wondering innocent upon each discovery punctuating aloneness in a way back when this child's neglect remained unwritten how stained and worn we become through time shaped by episodes and scars forgotten CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh John 3:3-17 - KJV

I drove the truck into my suburbia to get more beers. Sat patiently at an empty junction in the night, I waited for the light to turn from green to red. Ah! Stoned again   CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh Ephesians 5:18 - KJV

It’s not a way out she wants but a snug cul-de-sac in which to consummate her unhappiness, and my loneliness.  Achieving what? An illicit distraction for her, before parting too soon, perhaps again and again, as and when?  Me left alone with a trace still warm, still fragrant, in this place that is not her marriage bed     CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh Proverbs 6:32-33 - KJV

... the sunday 09:05 collects its first congregation with heads hung over not so smart screens doling out dopamine desires from a thick wifi soup in this irradiated tin can aimed approximately at a city where i will meet: the catholic mother grieving her dead child; the pugilistic vishnu draped in poverty, wrapped in wrath; the road sweeper who will confide incredible conspiracies to anyone with ears to hear; the stooped grey gent inclined towards misunderstanding; the addicted youth with tears of blood in her eyes ... -each falling short of the grand illusion- ... and the woman who said, "I was saved by someone like you" I will add these testimonies to others shared quietly on that city's street where later a final chariot will conduct its evening service to drive me back home at the end of another blessed day     CC BY-ND 4.0 - Russell Cavanagh Mark 16:15 - KJV