When you step off the bus in a strange town
duffel over your shoulder
hot breeze in your face
you remember the thing you’re trying to escape
is the thing you always bring with you.
It walks inside your shoes
sleeps inside your pillow
knows your bad dreams by name
and won’t wash out with soap
or gin.
You find a job washing dishes
or unloading crates of auto parts
(love and hate tattooed across
the knuckles of each day)
and still at night you can’t sleep.
You play solitaire with the pages
of an old pinup calendar
and count the cuts on your hands
while humming a Charlie Feathers song
to drown the engines in your head.
But the steady broom of tires
on wet pavement
tells you it’s time to pack up again.
Another bus ride, another town
more blood, more ashes.
The thing you pack first
is the thing you’re trying to lose.
by Charlie O’Hay
Charles O’Hay is the recipient of a 1995 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship in poetry. His poems have appeared in over 100 literary publications including Gargoyle, South Carolina Review, Brooklyn Review, West Branch, Mudfish, and New York Quarterly.
The author lives with his wife and daughter in eastern Pennsylvania. Far From Luck, his first full-length collection of poems is out now through Lucky Bat Books and available on Amazon.com.
Please join us for a great night of poetry and spoken word. Jim Trainer returns to Philly to perform and read with great writer Don Bajema and wonderful poet Charlie O’Hay.
Saturday June 7
An Evening of Poetry&Spoken Word
Don Bajema
Charlie O’Hay
Jim Trainer
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA 19119
SHOW TIMES TBA
Going for the Throat 