Poetry: Selections from John Grey

SPEAKING AS A NON-CELEBRITY

 

I live alone

in a small apartment.

 

Celebrities exist

in a way I can’t imagine.

 

I sometimes chat 

with my neighbors.

 

The famous have access

to a world beyond themselves.

 

On my television,

huge heads talk at me

with fluidity and ease.

 

Great voices 

show up on my stereo.

 

Experts in just about everything

line my bookshelves.

 

Even notable purveyors 

of lies and hate

have airwaves at their beck and call.

 

My opinions rarely leave

my living quarters.

 

My beliefs

have an audience of one.

TUGBOAT

 

It’s like a variation on a lightbulb joke.

How many tugboats does it take to fill a giant tanker?

The real answer is something like, 

more than the total of every tugboat on duty

in every port on the entire Eastern seaboard.

But there’s a second question that comes to mind.

How many tugboats does it take to lead 

one of those ocean-going behemoths into the dock?

The answer, this time, is twenty six feet long,

with a thousand horsepower diesel engine

and enough nautical muscle memory 

to nudge three football fields of ship into its harbor berth.

 

The tugboat captain would be bamboozled

if he ever stepped onto a tanker’s bridge.

His vessel keeps things simple.

Even his own computer he’s reluctant to have on board.

To him, the old tug is no different from his first fishing boat.

Even in the densest of harbors, he could have steered it blindfold.

His boat extends his body to the water and below.

It feels its way. And he feels the feelings.

 

Later, on the dock, he puffs on a cigarette,

looks up at the Goliath that he squeezed into a David.

His smile is wider than Goliath’s stern to bow.

THE END OF NOVEMBER

 

After a burst of brash north-westerlies,

brown and red and yellow leaves

are scattered all over the yard.

 

They haven’t just fallen

because it’s time

but have been ripped clear

of their branches,

flung about hysterically.  

 

The Autumn of looking up

at foliage 

is now the season 

of walking on its remnants.

 

As I grab a rake,

I have a feeling I’m being watched.

The stare is cold.

The presence is near.

It’s winter most likely.

ELLEN’S STATUS

 

She was the one who broke up the relationship,

and over a plate of his favorite

blueberry pancakes, overdosed with maple syrup.

Now she has her eye on someone at the office.

So what if he doesn’t notice her.

It’s better to have loved and lost

than kiss a man who tastes of trees.

 

Her apartment reminds her too much of her ex

so she’s thinking of moving,

down south if that part of the country will have her.

She longs for more sky than New England can provide,

and oranges like miniature suns.

So what if Florida’s tacky.

And, instead of her comfortable furniture, 

she’s stuck with cheap rattan.

And the walls in every room are pink,

the color that makes her want to puke.

So what if the so-what’s keep adding up.

 

She buys a bikini 

even though the local summers are hobbit-short.

It fits her well enough

and make her feel younger

She wears it around her rooms

as a protection against loneliness.

 

She seldom visits the local beaches

but swears to herself 

that if he ever moved to where

the beach was hot and broad and sanded gold,

she’d never leave.

She might even go into the water up to her waist.

Her favorite move as a child was “The Little Mermaid.”

She would be Ariel, heart halfway between sea and shore.

 

Now she wonders if she should have ended the relationship.

He was good for her despite his uninhibited sweet tooth.

And though not as dreamy as that guy in the office

he was kind and considerate and reliable.

Nothing Ariel would have left her briny home for.

But comforting, like “It’s A Wonderful Life”, her other favorite film.

ONE MAN SWAT TEAM

 

What buzzed in

changed the fabric of the room,

temporarily,

not forever.

 

It cast its net wide

for an inkling of sugar

then, when I was aroused to action,

it darted up and down the screen,

anxious for an opening.

 

Enter, look around for foodstuffs,

spread disease, then make a quick exit.

It refused to live any differently.

 

So don’t blame me if I swatted it.

The fault lies

in what an errant fly

could have done differently.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, City Brink and Tenth Muse.Latest books, “Subject Matters”,” Between Two Fires” and “Covert” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories and Cantos.