WAYNE RUSSELL - POEMS

Wayne Russell is or has been many things in his 48 years on this planet, he has been a creative writer, world traveler, graphic designer, former soldier, and former sailor. Wayne has been widely published in both online and hard copy creative writing magazines. From 2016-17 he also founded and edited Degenerate Literature. Just recently, the kind editors at Ariel Chart has nominated Wayne for his first Pushcart Prize for the poem Stranger in a Strange Town. Where Angels Fear is his debut e-book. 

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New World

​Tonight there is no pain,
this for me seems odd.

For the first time in many
years, I am at peace with
myself.

At peace with the triumphs,
as well as with the tragedies.

I have been on this odyssey,
and as the day fades into
evening, in this facade of life,

I stand here upon the edge of
eternity, facing the new world.

Together or alone, what difference
does it make? 

I have survived the darkest hour,
now it is time to live again.

An American in Rural Scotland 

From the land of the free and the home of the brave,
I found myself at age 21, in Scotland, I was a stranger
in town, but I felt oddly at home.

Robert Burns poetry was everywhere, fish & chips,
replaced the burger, apple cider mixed into the pint,
and haggis for the first time was a treat.

The beautiful blonde, she danced with me at the hole
in a wall pub, a few hours later we were kissing on the
dance floor to the song Ae Fond Kiss.

It was something right out of a movie...

Years later I can still remember the pipe smoke, as it
twirled like a ballerina through the damp cobbled lanes,
some old man giving my new found love his nod of approval.

What would that old man have said, if he would have known
that I was many years removed from my true motherland?

Scotland, I wore her proud on my bosom for only a year,
and then just like that, all I have are the memories of her,
buried in my heart.   ​

​What's On the Other Side of the Wall? 

​Every time I leave my children with
my ex-wife and her new lover, I feel
a gnawing pain in my hollowed heart.

Those old feelings return like reruns
on cable vision, not for her, that died
years ago, but feelings of deep despair.

I feel like the biggest failure that the
world has ever known.

As I drive off into the sunset, I can see
a rainbow, but that brings me little comfort,
Pink Floyd's The Wall shatters the silence
of my long ride home.

Refrains of Hey You ricochet within my soul

“And the worms ate into his brain!”

The walls erected within, isolating me from
all that was ever known or ever loved, losing
it all, the rainbow made a promise it could not
keep.

There is no happiness on the other side, only
loneliness, isolation, pain, and death.

“And the worms ate into his brain!”
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Poem What's On the Other Side of the Wall? LW Russell 2018 (c)
References of Pink Floyd LP The Wall and the song Hey You are
copyrighted to Roger Waters