postcard from blue ash


bleach white horizon

stark sun blinding

it seems from the highway

that ohio is the world

and the world is flat


past the last cloud

I could drop off the edge

of the world, find myself

on the bloomfield bridge

with night smelling of clove

cigarettes, stamped

out 20 years ago


I feel like ishmael

in this motel

where am I again?


blue ash, eyes peeled

bloodshot from the road

in this light my beard

is gun metal grey


I walk over to the door

pull it open to a night

of bad sleep and stars


it's 51 miles to vevay

indiana, the front moving

in pushes the breeze

when I breathe deeply

I smell my lover

waiting



Jason Baldinger is a poet from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  A former Writer in Residence at Osage Arts Community, he is co-founder of The Bridge Series. He has multiple books available including and Everyone’s Alone Tonight with James Benger (Kung Fu Treachery Press) the chapbook Blind Into Leaving (Analog Submission Press) as well as the forthcoming Afterlife is a Hangover (Stubborn Mule Press). His work has been published widely in print journals and online. You can listen to him read his work on Bandcamp and on lps by the bands Theremonster and The Gotobeds.