John Grey (Australia)

John Grey (Australia)

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Ellipsis. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Washington Square Review, Blueline and International Poetry Review.


SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN PROVIDENCE

The roots will never
stop thirsting for the sky.
Sound is always out there,
a great air vacuum
awaiting on birds to fill it.

Moths waltz around a bulb
but the moon is off limits.
It's you and I
who use the pale light
for our dance floor.

The old man's
on his veranda
telling the world
how hard it used to rain.

Somewhere below us,
worms tunnel their way
into their own old tunnels
or the new tunnels
of other worms.


NIGHTLY NEWS

The TV informs me they're out there:
car-bombs, serial killers,
dictators butchering their own to stay in power.
And then there's the epidemics,
mosquitoes, ticks and fleas,
tiny living resentments
getting their own back at people.
And worse than that, the pandemic, Covid 19.
What did we ever do to bats?

Next up, the camera turns its ghoulish eye
toward my own neighborhood.
Drive-by shooting claims ten-year-old.
Child burnt in house fire,
found clutching the charred remains of a teddy bear.
A deadly three-car pileup.
A drowning in a pond.

Then there’s the sports.
Such a relief
even though my team didn’t win.
These losers traipse off the field,
but to the showers,
not the firing squad.



MARITAL ARGUMENT

Yes, it’s a boxing match.
Middleweight versus fly.
It’s just that no punches are thrown.

The uppercuts to the jaw
are expressions.
The swinging haymakers
are words.

And the noses aren’t broken.
They’re merely out of joint.
There are bruises,
but only behind the eyes.

And we don’t deck ourselves out
in wrist straps, mouth guards,
and gloves.
Whatever we happen to be wearing
will do.

There’s no ring.
Merely a kitchen.
A bedroom.
Sometimes even
the confined space
of a bathroom.

Nor are there crowds
screaming for blood.
Unless, of course,
you count the neighbors.

Thankfully,  the bout doesn’t go on
for round after round.
The bell rings
when we both wake up to
how stupid, how insensitive, we’re being.

Mostly, the tussle ends in a clinch.
Warm and loving.
It takes more than a ref
to pull us apart.