{"id":16356,"date":"2026-06-14T07:07:04","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T05:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=16356"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:08:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T18:08:37","slug":"poems-by-alex-rainey-ward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=16356","title":{"rendered":"poems by Alex Rainey Ward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Folly Beach<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if Folly Beach is bad luck or what<\/p>\n

I guess the name says it<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen terns there rippling like flags<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve watched how they flop into the sea<\/p>\n

as if it were only a stunt<\/p>\n

as if they didn\u2019t want to catch a fish at all<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve swum there naked at night<\/p>\n

under a blue moon that looked like<\/p>\n

sunset on Mars<\/p>\n

my hands smell like vinegar<\/p>\n

I wonder if I\u2019m christ<\/p>\n

I probably am christ<\/p>\n

otherwise why all this pointless bleeding<\/p>\n

that\u2019s a nice tattoo<\/p>\n

thanks I won it in a hot dog eating contest<\/p>\n

my girl and I dove in naked<\/p>\n

the sea kept slapping me in the face<\/p>\n

when we emerged from the sea<\/p>\n

our clothes were gone<\/p>\n

we thought they\u2019d been stolen<\/p>\n

a little dog came trotting up<\/p>\n

and sniffed my embarrassing parts<\/p>\n

women<\/p>\n

don\u2019t mess with them<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Book of life<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I fucked in a church once standing up<\/p>\n

you know it, the Little Church of St. Anthony<\/p>\n

just off Hwy. 9, down the gravel<\/p>\n

there\u2019s an old book there that everyone<\/p>\n

signs their names in fading away<\/p>\n

the Book of Life<\/p>\n

I\u2019m waiting for the server<\/p>\n

to refill my coffee<\/p>\n

at this diner in the middle of nowhere<\/p>\n

why can\u2019t it always be pleasant and quiet and still<\/p>\n

instead of horror and annihilation<\/p>\n

instead of smoking ruins<\/p>\n

my soul is a coin of cheap disgust<\/p>\n

somewhere a sea is shh-ing on a shore<\/p>\n

as if its only purpose were to<\/p>\n

lullaby lost souls<\/p>\n

Saturn, saturnine, stars jingle in my pocket<\/p>\n

when I walk through the morning streets at last<\/p>\n

looking upward, blinded<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Small Black Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

it\u2019s bad luck to close the bedroom door<\/p>\n

in a house where you\u2019re all alone<\/p>\n

I await the devil\u2019s knock or some other miscreant<\/p>\n

the soft call of the moon and the sea<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so weary that I\u2019ll welcome whatever comes<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t dare to pray<\/p>\n

too tired, tired of waiting<\/p>\n

my uncle said God isn\u2019t the Great Vending<\/p>\n

Machine in the Sky<\/p>\n

why the fuck not<\/p>\n

he\u2019s that vending machine that<\/p>\n

gives you the wrong thing<\/p>\n

ask Huck Finn<\/p>\n

put coins in those are the prayers clink clink<\/p>\n

you press the coin return and nothing comes<\/p>\n

some people shake the machine some people punch it<\/p>\n

I\u2019m unforgivable my heart\u2019s a small black stone<\/p>\n

Jesus knocked and barked his knuckles<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

San Juan One Morning<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

here in San Juan morning about to come with a<\/p>\n

feeling of trembling sea shakes the air\u2019s tambourine<\/p>\n

all the sidewalks are upended by the old trees trying to<\/p>\n

shake off their fetters<\/p>\n

all the coffeehouses and all the money and rum and marijuana<\/p>\n

men racing their engines up and down Calle Loiza<\/p>\n

how can there be cereal and park benches and swings and<\/p>\n

old people and canes and sunshine and clouds and<\/p>\n

Schubert\u2019s lieder<\/p>\n

how can these things be why give us allow us only to<\/p>\n

grind us down into dust into woe and misery, Lord<\/p>\n

why not just fucking get it over with<\/p>\n

why allow us this sunlight this rose this bird<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how things go<\/p>\n

if I could snap my fingers or whistle<\/p>\n

but I just stand here leaning against a tree<\/p>\n

ineptly grasping at the light<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Caper<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m the deliquescent man the diaphanous man<\/p>\n

as if I were becoming pure spirit<\/p>\n

my shadow used to nimbly caper all around me as a boy<\/p>\n

but then it gave up<\/p>\n

as defeated as a clown in a terminally ill<\/p>\n

children\u2019s hospital<\/p>\n

it taught me how to adumbrate, distend, attenuate<\/p>\n

until with the wee-est squeak like the merest tip of a tree branch<\/p>\n

on your windowpane I can get inside your Nightmares<\/p>\n

my shadow\u2019s the one who put it in my head to be<\/p>\n

shot out of a cannon<\/p>\n

when your shadow leaves it means you\u2019re dead but that\u2019s just a<\/p>\n

drippy old wives\u2019 tale<\/p>\n

just a cigar burn in the head of a tambourine and incidentally those<\/p>\n

jingly things are called zills<\/p>\n

they harrow the moon\u2019s spine<\/p>\n

I adumbrate I percolate I leap within though outwardly<\/p>\n

I\u2019m hobbled as a rocking chair sans a rocker<\/p>\n

something within\u2019s growing deeper it could be feelings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Folly Beach   I don\u2019t know if Folly Beach is bad luck or what I guess the name says it I\u2019ve seen terns there rippling like flags<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1872,77],"tags":[1901,1873,1123],"class_list":["post-16356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-89-90","category-english","tag-alex-rainey-ward","tag-egophobia-89-90","tag-english"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-4fO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16357,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16356\/revisions\/16357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}