Poetry: Selections from John Grey

Angry One

Your features change

at the hurling of the insults.

Flame singes the edges of your nostrils.

Your eyes are no longer green but red.

Your cheeks are purple.

That menacing mouth reeks of sulfur.

And your ears swish like scythes.

You’re victim of an anger

that not even physicality can contain.

It has dragged your looks down

to the body language basement.

Yet you look like you’ve been running up stairs.

Sunset Stalks the Battlefield

Sun cast coronae

on the settled dust

above the ridge.

It took the shape of bodies,

of gutted tanks and burnt shell casings.

The fading light preferred

the glint of grass to corpses,

the glow of rock to steel.

Crows, flies -

of no interest to the

dregs of brightness.

Shadows joined in the feast

but the gleam wasn't hungry.

Finally, day succumbed

to the horizon.

For a moment,

the sun glowed blood-red

on the blue shirt of the sky.

A Dunk

The court is black and throbbing,

each player pushing to create his space,

and one hand stretches out and up,

feeds the rim with sweat,

the ball, his long brown fingers.

Spectators grip the playground wire,

a few Stygian souls,

solitary, too young and too old.

On one side,

hip-hop rocking age-old three floor tenement,

and from a lonely window.,

50's jazz, smooth and forgetful.

On the other, burnt home shells

braced with hymns and prayers

in the shadow of a dying fire

or a cigarette smoldering

in a basement bar -

whatever the ash,

it's blowing, it's falling.

Time lets them have their day,

shirts versus skins,

a twilight ripped from cycles,

the decline, the failure,

the toxicity, the cold.

And everywhere around,

the score is whatever

the toughest guys say it is.

No Better

He sprang out of bed,

bounced down the stairs,

He ate cereal,

a bowl of fruit,

and drank a glass of milk.

He took the dog for a walk

and himself for a run.

Then he went to work,

spent a productive eight hours

absorbed in the job he adored.

After that, he cooked a meal

for his beloved,

with lean meat, healthy vegetables,

smothered by a tangy

(but not too tangy) sauce.

Once again, the two foreswore sex

until their wedding night

the coming June.

They kissed at the door.

And then he slipped into bed.

As he dozed off,

he said to himself,

“It gets no better than this.”

Looking back, years later,

he wished that he hadn’t been right.

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.