Genre: Religious Spiritual

FUNNY MAYBE

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“Funny Maybe” is a strong, thematically dense lyric poem that blends anti-romantic confession with folk-blues cadence. A reflective poem of a love lost, it maintains a sharp tension between trauma and divine order as principle factors in romance, where only wisdom prevails, but the source of wisdom is God, who many ignore or deny. Written for the “A Shattered Cup of Doom” novella, this poem appears in the “Third Shards of Broken Glass” chapbook.

“FUNNY MAYBE”

romance is a double-edged
sword of bliss and pain
what one day finds sophisticated
another finds insane
i met her on the road to torment
dancing in the rain
funny how its feast or famine
funny how things change

i learned the hard way long ago
and true the light remains
a man can stand tall in a storm
a boy gets washed away
i was never not the fool
up to wisdom, faith and grace
so what fool any better than
the one so blind to his own face

they say the road to hell’s so wide
that we need never know the way
just what we’re apt to think and do
will surely get us there someday
by god i did not die the fool
by god all things made new again
lest i’d forever be beneath
her spell and tethered to her fate

her wrath was bred for so she said
on trauma no one sane could face
and so averse, she to the curse,
castrated patriarchal ways
and there the seed, revenge and rage
into the dirt of dark decay
stretched a hand out to the moonlight
that predator might become prey

but for suitors woe was but a ruse
a pagan priestess yet a saint
and all for good that it harm none
but such it is until it ain’t
no light true is born of darkness
no good comes from bitter hate
and yet the line runs round the corner
where in the rain so many wait

i met her on the road to torment
planting roses in a vase
funny how it keeps repeating
funny, maybe, surely strange
one sure thing a fool will do
is take up arms, defend her name
a knight in shining armor, no
just icarus into the flame

Copyright © 2026 Robert Myrnyj | All rights reserved.
The poems and literary works presented here are original creations by the author.
Unauthorized copying, reproduction, distribution, modification, or public display of this
content is strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

JUKE

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The ambitious six-part narrative “Juke” is a poetic take on the legendary folk tales of the Mississippi Delta Bluesmen. Here, the universal tale of a meeting with the Devil at the crossroads is bungled ironically enough by the sin and vice of an aspiring musician.

“JUKE”

i.

i left the delta on a train
for chicago in the pouring rain
but the central line, it runs two ways
and will return again someday

mississippi chicago
the more you look the more you know
it makes no difference, you see
pullin’ cotton , packin’ meat

a stella flat-top made of birch
stolen from a bronzeville church
i can’t sing or play a note
yet fortune waits for me i’m told

there is a man
they say there’s some man

ii.

down the river-levee road
worn and weathered two-tone brogue
i heard them singing at st paul’s
out for miles through the walls

i sat outside the church house door
friday worst and cursed and poor
i drew ol’ stella from her sack
but she refused to answer back

sat alone there for a while
a church girl found me there and smiled
if you can really play that thing
then you will strum and i will sing

there is a man
they say there’s some man

iii.

and over off beyond the graves
an old cottonwood for shade
but when i tried to play my part
she put her hand upon my heart

a booming voice of righteous rage
twice my size and twice my age
her daddy standing in the sun
with a hardware store shotgun

jack-rabbit, fast as i could
no time for goodbye for good
don’t look back, don’t leave no tracks
lay low until the sky goes black

there is a man
they say there’s some man

iv.

they say some man, don’t give no name
but he offers fortune, offers fame
and i can have all of these things
if i let him tune my flat-top strings

there is a man, comes at midnight
but only when the moon is right
south of rosedale black as coal
sign away in blood, your soul

i look into the starry sky
waiting as some clouds pass by
the harvest moon looms large and low
a few more hours left to go

there is a man
they say there’s some man

v.

i crawl out of a ditch near town
and put an ear down to the ground
they say they really lettin’ loose
some dirt floor shack down main and bruce

an old tin roof and old plank walls
i took the stage corn liquor balls
they cry a tear with bertha lee
but they could only laugh at me

i set out drunk alone ashamed
just hoping they forget my name
just me and stella my guitar
and lightnin’ in an old fruit jar

there is a man
they say there’s some man

vi.

mumblin’ stumblin’ south on main
i fell face first into the drain
but all will change when midnight comes
but it was already a half past one

was it just my luck was it just my fate
to be forever drunk and late
the shadow man would just not wait
mississippi one and eight

so i smashed that old guitar to bits
ain’t getting anywhere with it
but still the taste is in my mouth
hang down my head, keep heading south

there is a man
they say there’s some man

Copyright © 2026 Robert Myrnyj | All rights reserved.
The poems and literary works presented here are original creations by the author.
Unauthorized copying, reproduction, distribution, modification, or public display of this
content is strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

FOR ALL TIME

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Written in 2026, “For All Time” is, in its beauty and wonder, perhaps the most unsettling poem in the dark and dreary realm of the “A Shattered Cup of Doom” novella. It is the linchpin that holds past, present, and future together as one and it is the burst of dawn following a deeply foreboding night. The warmth, the light, and the life of “For All Time” is both the beginning and the ending of the novella, the alpha and the omega. Though it registers with simplicity as Pastoral and Idyllic in tone, it is a very unique work that covers many poetic genres. In its constitution, “For All Time” is at once, Pastoral / Idyllic, strongly Lyric, certainly Romantic / Love Poetry to the fullest, very deeply Religious and Spiritual, and loosely but assuredly Narrative. It is presented in the “Third Shards of Broken Glass” collection, but also stands alone in dedication to the excellent wife that the LORD GOD blessed me with.

“FOR ALL TIME”

some time after dawn
a glaze of dew yet on the lawn
an old man and his pups
beneath the old catalpa tree
and the woman so fair
her blue eyes and golden hair
a kettle and two cups
she brings to him his morning tea

and god is good and god is kind
the peace of christ is peace of mind
and in her weary eyes he finds
his home, his hearth, his partner
for all time

in the noonday sun
he sees his course is not yet run
he has toiled not enough
to set his soul and spirit free
and the woman so fair
her blue eyes and golden hair
as he rolls up his cuffs
brings lemonade and levity

and god is good and god is kind
and blessed are the vows that bind
for in his weary eyes she finds
her home, her hearth, her partner
for all time

when the chains are loosed
the orpingtons come home to roost
he wipes his brow, shakes the dust,
and ascends above his elegy
and the woman so fair
her blue eyes and golden hair
cuddled up with the mutts
brings the wine of their liturgy

and god is good and god is kind
and here for heartbeats so inclined
for in his ancient eyes they find
their home, their hearth, their partner
for all time

evening descends
and midnight moonlight burns again
for legacy he must
spin fortune from calamity
and the woman so fair
her blue eyes and golden hair
a perfect act of trust
kisses him, turns in, and falls asleep

Copyright © 2026 Robert Myrnyj | All rights reserved.
The poems and literary works presented here are original creations by the author.
Unauthorized copying, reproduction, distribution, modification, or public display of this
content is strictly prohibited without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.