Hotel Dostoevsky By John Drudge

Insistently moody

Obscurely born

Of a murdered father

And tormented mother

In a grey town

Beyond crime and punishment 

Among the fragments 

Of brothers

And the good and evil

Of inevitable existence

Through harsh 

Irascible histories

And timid futures

Down from the gallows

And into the fire

Over the bare bones

Of violent dialectics

And the creation

Of a new art

Tangible as tears

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.