Poetry by Jim Trainer

              Christian Collins CC




BRUISER CLASS 
for Joe Brundidge 

every joy with its bitter tang 
every night won, despite pat battery
we greet the full day 
headlong, two feet, an insistent weight
spite worked and anger, but retreat
is our lasting victory 
when we see each other at the cafe
pitch up from tumbling 
don’t feign love or talk war 
we grin hard and know each other
and laugh louder than the void.





GODS OF DEVOTION 

make you think you’re seeing diamonds in broken glass
punch you drunk 
til you’re staggering up the thin air 
til you’re lean, till your love is clean 
til your hate is clean 
the beast of your past, the voice of karma 
the stinking yoke of history 
all make for a thrust and blush 
there wasn’t ever any truth 
those bastards stood on our fathers’ backs too long
you get to hearing their voices and you 
stand up and you answer back 
that this day is the day and these nights cathedrals
you break through when you realize 
there wasn’t a chance 
you didn’t need one.

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Jim Trainer is a poet, publisher, writer and performer. He blogs weekly at Going For the Throat and writes a monthly column for Into The Void magazine. As a proponent of personal journalism Trainer reports on the inner life while writing about recovery, mental health and the creative process. Trainer publishes one letterpressed and perfectly bound-by-hand collection of poetry, and sometimes prose, every year through Yellow Lark Press. STRIDE will be his 8th. Trainer is the progenitor of Stand Up Tragedy and performs regularly throughout the world.

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