Poetry: Selections from John Grey

Safety in Poetry

Somebody dies in a drive-by shooting.

So what has that got to do with poetry?

 

Body's sprawled across the stoop,

red gushing from the chest

while family dash down the tenement stairs

and neighbors take sides —

concerned or just curious.

 

What do I know about it?

Poetry's a safe occupation.

It's not like being a cabbie

or minding the till at a convenience store.

It's not a cop.

It's not like a kid who may or may not be

in a rival gang.

 

I'm part of this careful occupation campaign.

When the barrel is pointing, be elsewhere.

 

The cops arrive.

Ambulance too.

No point getting worked up over all this,

they say

It's the ghetto.

Getting yourself killed is standard procedure.

 

My advice is don't be poor

and live in the inner city.

Move to the suburbs. Write poetry.

 

Own your own home

with a yard and a garden and a fence.

Green grass, shady trees,

rippling creeks - that's it.

Write the first blank verse

that comes to mind -

the blanker the better.

Something for the Pain

She doesn’t cry all the time.

Not from the pain that makes her sleepy.

Just the one that keeps her awake.

Nor does she laugh so much.

For the joke is mostly on her.

And she lacks the cruelty

to burst out in hysterics

when bad things happen to other people.

 

She will laugh or cry at movies.

If the film is sappy enough,

she’ll giggle at the death scene.

Or if the characters find happiness

in the life she once dreamed of,

she’ll come over all sadly warm.

They’re just movies.

She knows they’re not real.

She knows that everything else is.

Wife of Sorrow

Night is at the heart of it.

And there’s always another night.

 

Sun goes down.

Evening begins.

And she makes up the rest of the story.

 

The next light

is always an artificial one.

 

It can’t find another living soul

but it knows where she will be.

 

In the morning,

she looks at the trees,

the garden flowers

and knows that they’re not looking back at her.

 

The day has no age.

But she is of every age.

 

Her head droops.

Her feet are a valley.

Bar Stories

"I had this teacher in high school,"

he tells me.

"Right in front of everyone,

he says I'm stupid.

Which was true I guess.

But I didn't need to hear it from him."

 

He sips his beer.

His speech is slurred,

cheeks scarred,

like he's been through all the horrors.

 

"I punched him in the nose,"

he continues.

"He sure weren't expecting that.

His face swelled up

like one of them Japanese fish."

 

He takes one long gulp of his drink

after saying that word "punched."

It must have felt good.

Like all of the things in his life

that were so amazing and fulfilling

in the instant

but rocketed downhill soon after.

 

"They sent me to this camp in the woods

like mother nature and some tattooed thugs

called counselors

would straighten me out.

Didn't work.

I chopped wood,

got bitten by bugs,

trudged through mud, climbed rope,

and I still figured that teacher for an asshole."

 

He slurps up the last of his drink

and then pours himself another.

 

I then relate my life story.

It isn't a pitcher of beer like his.

More of a martini.

I grimace as I swallow the bitter olive -

stupid but I don't whack myself for it.

John Grey is an Australian poet, and US resident, who has recently been published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Red Weather. His latest books, Covert, Memory Outside The Head, and Guest Of Myself are all available through Amazon.