Jason Ryberg

Only the Lonely

Ain’t so bad feelin’
lonely (jus’ cuz you’re no one’s
one and only), parked

on the side of some
lonesome stretch of backroad, just
a few short miles out-

side of No Dice, OK:
the radio glowin’ out
some sad and lonesome

tune, and a cool wind
blowin’ in across a field
that, somehow, in this

powder-blue moonlight,
looks just like desert dunes. Or
maybe you’re just one

more nameless Dutchman,
driftin,’ aimless, somewhere off
the coast of Ghost of

a Chance, NE, or per-
haps you’re just another beat-
down soul explorer,

unable to break
your wayward, manic orbit
around Three Blue Tears, 

MO. Cousin, ain’t no
reason to brood and grumble
and stew with worry.

It really ain’t all
that bad; shit, not if you got
your Old Grandad and

your Uncle Mickey
with ya, swappin’ lies about
women and fights and

racin’ cars under-
neath an all-over sky of
lonely stars. Nah, hell

man, it ain’t so bad
feelin’ lonely, ain’t so bad
at all, returnin’

a lonely midnight
call from our sly and wily
cousin, the Coyote,

or, maybe you’re just
sharin’ your last cigarette
with the ghost of old

Uncle Roy’s lonely midnight
blues. That’s right, man, go on and
smoke that last smoke, there,

while the DJ is 
changin’ the song. Go on and
take another pull

off that bottle and
return that desperate call,
and don’t let no one

try to tell you; it
aint so bad feelin’ lonely…
aint so bad at all.

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 The Great American Pyramid Scheme (co-authored with W.E. Leathem, Tim Tarkelly and Mack Thorn, OAC Books, 2022). He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a billygoat named Giuseppe and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.