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 Kicking Up the Dust, Calling Down the Lightning (Grindstone 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. 

Driving All Night

Morning finally comes as dawn creeps up over
     crumbling fields and receding roads and
telephone wires, forbidden mountains of cloud off in
the distance, daring us to just
keep driving ‘til we
either make
it all
the 
way
or
the
goddamn
wheels fall off.

This and / or That

Gusts
of
dead leaves
like ghosts who
just can’t lie still and
go to sleep, an otherwise well-
dressed man without his shoes, asking people for advice
as to the local cuisine, every television,
     everywhere, turned to a channel
with a soap opera overflowing with every
emotion, every radio
tuned to the latest
breaking news
about
this
and /
or 
that.

This Time 

the eye of Sauron is definitely upon you,  
or whatever you want to call that chilling / 
crippling / just-go-limp-if-you-know-what’s-good- 
for-you feeling like a freeze ray or klieg light  
suddenly beaming at you, prison break style,  
from the dark heart of that doom-clouded  
set of coordinates (just over your shoulder  
and normally out of your sphere of perception  
and influence); that place from where all 
vaguely foreboding phone calls and  
ominously certified letters seem to issue forth. 
Well, at least somebody noticed your frantic,  
little organ-grinder monkey antics, even if it  
means your cover has been effectively blown. 
Ask any sullen, scowling, chronically texting  
teenager: sometimes, merely being acknowledged 
by someone (anyone) is validation enough. 
Other times, best to stay incognito and off the grid:  
an unlisted phone number, maybe,  
and a forwarding address in someone else’s name, 
a cash only policy and nothing anyone  
would even think about putting a lien on. 
Unfortunately, the tectonic plates of reality 
seem to move with a life of their own  
(and with no applicable quality even close
to resembling concern for your dumb ass): 
one minute it’s all champagne and chicken wings,  
the next you’re out the backdoor  
with a suitcase in the middle of the night  
and no looking back, the polaroid snapshot 
taped on the refrigerator door (you and some girl 
from some long ago and presumably better time) 
the only proof you were  ever here.