John Grey

HER LIFE                               

Crocus pokes through permafrost.
Imagine that.
A flower in winter,
lone soldier against
the armies of chill.
And then there's the dandelion,
wasting all that color on being a weed.
The evidence is out there.
Be vulnerable, be contrary.
Flowers fold, are plucked, beheaded.
And yet, remember color.
It won't remember you.

THE TRAVELING BUG

I didn't once look back.
There was enough in the sky to keep me occupied.
Show me one family photograph where there's
someone with their wings spread wide and soaring.
But blackbirds did it with ease.
Even lumbering mourning doves gained altitude eventually.
The eagle promised me a ride on its back.
And what did my father say but,
"If you want, I'll drive you to the station."

There was more color in one wild flower
than in a hundred of their faces.
And the signposts gave out information...
so much more useful than advice.
I drank in bars with strangers.
There's something about somebody I've just met...
everything they are is still to come.
Beer or no beer, who could surprise me where I'm from.

So many towns that weren't my towns.
Such a cornucopia of different accents.
And customs, like habits but with fun and flair.
I even entered a cannon ball toss.
Barely budged the thing an inch from the circle...
But a thousand miles from home, easy...


CP

John Grey, an Australian-born poet, has been a US resident since the late 1970s. He works as a financial systems analyst, and his poetry has been published in Slant,  Briar Cliff Review, Albatross, Poetry East, among others.

John Grey

COMBING HER HAIR

Her hair is long and gray
but with slow, steady strokes,
I comb some of the blonde youth
back into it.
She talks of twilights,
of the music wafting out of her,
of the plots and betrayals
of the heart.
But the loving fine teeth
soothe with appreciation
for the unaccountable joys
of even the most bed-ridden life.
Her own fingers tremble
at the touch of the implement
but she can have a little of my years
as I talk memory, preen love.
Some days, the truth of the matter
is in the grooming,
in the hands that descend like doves,
restore their roosting places.

CP

John Grey, born in Australia, has lived in the USA since the 1970s. His work has appeared in Slant, Briar Cliff Review, Albatross, Poetry East, Cape Rock, REAL and elsewhere.

John Grey

BOY SCOUTS

We needed a fire but matches were verboten
so rubbing two sticks together it had to be.
Just like primitive man, when the tiniest flame
suddenly crackled in the flakes of bark, my heart bounced.
And then when dry leaves suddenly set ablaze
and twigs and broken branches followed,
my chest puffed up like a frog's throat.

In moments, the fire was
huge and hot and bright enough
to make day out of night.
We were surely back there
at the beginning of mankind.
We'd been warmed, we'd seen each
other's faces glowing like kitchen windows.

What was next? Meat for the flame?
Gather stones and wood, forge tools?
Go off into the dark and hunt the beast?
Bludgeon a deer, spear a raccoon?
Back in civilization,
we'd be expected to help old ladies across the street.
More signs that the wheel had been invented.

CP

John Grey, born in Australia, has lived in the USA since the 1970s. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Slant, Briar Cliff Review, Albatross, Poetry East, Cape Rock, REAL and elsewhere.

John Grey

DREAM REQUEST

I would like to see dreams flow,
descend from the hills into
the flat and sunny fields of morning.
I want it to be a case
of ice-caps melting overnight
and my life suddenly fluid and free
as the kinds of tears that clear the sorrow.
Sure the grass can be uncertain in the wind
and maybe some weeds might upset
their clear green pattern
and stalks of corn reflect
the need for human industry.
But I want something to come out of night,
not more of its oblivion.
Maybe some birds taking off from distant river banks.
Maybe an old truck spluttering by
with a tribe of kids clinging to the running board.
How about trees in the distance,
the still and stately kind,
and a cloud of butterflies,
fluttering about, unconscious of their beauty.
And a dog with tongue out and tail wagging
that even comes up to strangers.
I want dreams to clear out all the questions
that require a "no"
so that when I awaken, my eyes, my mouth,
can say yes to everything.
I want a dream that's not a soporific
for the darkness but a flush,
a cleansing agent.
Dream me pain like it's the end of it.
Dream me doors so I can feel outside.

CP

John Grey, born in Australia, has lived in the USA since the 1970s. His work has recently appeared in Slant, Briar Cliff Review, and Albatross and is forthcoming in Poetry East, Cape Rock, and REAL.

John Grey

CURE-ALL

Another letter from you,
full of medical advice.
You write to my ailments,
not to me.
I’m beginning to think
it’s my headaches you miss,
the allergies, the cough.
You lived with them, not with me.
Your companion was the throb
behind my forehead,
the sneezing fits,
the cigarette hack of one
who never smoked.
I’m sure you only pretend
to want them cured
with your new-age remedies,
your lists of pharmaceutical web sites.
If I got better,
you’d be killing your own memories.
A clean bill of health for me
is five years stolen from your life.
You end your letter with the usual
“Love you.”
That’s another cure that you
don’t really wish for me.

CP

John Grey has been published in the Georgetown Review, Connecticut Review, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal, among others.

John Grey

DOG NIGHTS

you’ re naked
like I’m chasing the dog,
coining towards me,
flesh flapping like wings,
and I’m wondering
why the fuck you left
suddenly like that,
as you leap upon me,
securing my body like leather
and I’m out rushing through
dead streets, down wind-tunnel
alleys, listening for
that familiar yelp,
and you ride up and down
on my hardness
while I’m thinking
he’s never going to turn up
when suddenly I come
and there he is
diving into a trash can
like three fish heads
and a half eaten packet of bacon bits
is the way to freedom
and you’re licking me
and he’s licking me
and we’re all bundled up
and furry and pretending
that warm and cozy is the
same as glad to see each other

CP

John Grey has been published recently in the Georgetown Review, Connecticut Review, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal, among others.

John Grey

—Photo by Ruth Douillette

BEYOND BIRDSONG

It's the birds on the high power lines that tell me. The
song is about nothing more than the possibility of being
fried alive at any moment. Or it could be the tunes of the
frenzied crows mobbing the Cooper's hawk: you only think
you’ve got the numbers. It's not always the melody of
chickadee cloud chirping directions at one another or
courting cardinals on branches. There's a chant for the BB
gun and the drop out of the sky. There's this almost
choral riff for the threat of being road-kill or fuselage
fodder. There's arias of the robbed nest, fugues for the
blood-red claws of night owls. There's concertos we don’t
hear: flute solos played by winter wind in hollow bones
or trembling counterpoints of broken wings and oil-soaked
feathers. Always, there's the music we must have, the
music that must have us.

CP

John Grey has been published recently in the Georgetown Review, Connecticut Review, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal, with work upcoming in Poetry East and The Pinch.

John Grey

THE GIANTS IN THE FAMILY

So when was the first time I started looking
down on the old man and not up to
him. Maybe it was when I got my driver's
license, and then my own car, and even
though I was still at home, I felt like
I was renting, kept my own hours, even
brought a girl up to my room though
just to admire my heavy metal albums.
Even though he was still an inch or two
taller than me, I made up the difference by
staying out until the early hours of the morning,
grabbing a beer from the refrigerator just like
he did, buying my own clothes, the last of which
ensured my mother was no longer my mother.
I even dared have an opinion on politics
different than his own. And I found a job
with better prospects than... that's the
joke of course. He never had a job
with prospects. I've heard the kids of
immigrants talk about how each generation
paves the way for the next. He didn't
pave the way for me however. He just
was, like the television just was, especially
with him plunked down in front of it. Not that
I didn't love him of course. But then I found
someone else to love, a whole world of passion
beyond my parents' snore-filled sleep and languid
conversation. And now she's pregnant. And he'll be
a grandfather, outsized for the second time. And I'll
likely go the same way when my child grows. But
for now, I'll just get married, buy a house, stay home
nights, pay off a mortgage. Or I could just shrink,
whichever comes the soonest.


CP

John Grey has been published recently in the Georgetown Review, Connecticut Review, South Carolina Review and The Pedestal, with work upcoming in Poetry East and The Pinch.