Jeff Weddle

Jeff Weddle

Jeff Weddle is a poet, short story writer and small press historian living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Among his thirteen books are the Welty Prize winning Bohemian New Orleans: The Story of the Outsider and Loujon Press (University Press of Mississippi, 2007), When Giraffes Flew: Short Stories (Southern Yellow Pine, 2015), and poetry collections Comes to This (Nixes Mate, 2017) Heart of the Broken World (Nixes Mate, 2017) Citizen Relent (Unlikely Books, 2019), A Puncher’s Chance (Rust Belt Press, 2019) and others. His most recent volume is Advice for Cannibals (Poetic Justice Books, 2022).

in some small book
no one will ever read
 
there is a poem
written about you

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like silly promises
of love and always
in the vast and hungry
empty
burning night.

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the people arguing
and the people asleep on benches
and some saw it coming
and thought they could fix things or hide
maybe escape

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Keep it close
to the bone, boy.
Keep the blade busy.
You were never
going to be their darling
so what have you got to lose?

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