JOHN GREY - POEMS

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Examined Life Journal, Studio One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Leading Edge, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.   

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​FINAL

​The end was drawing near.
Every last leaf had drifted down
from the trees
and the dog’s breaths were growing
shorter and shorter.
Besides which,
the classical piece on the stereo
was well into its coda.
The mystery I was reading
had already revealed who did it
and I was skipping through
the typically boring wrap-up.
It was also the last hour of November.
Not forgetting the final drops
of my hot toddy
and the closing rumble
of my friend’s car
as she drove away from the house.
It occurred to me
that if something didn’t begin real soon
then everything would go black.
My leg was itchy
and I started scratching it.
The world was saved.
 
 

​DRUGS

​the bad drug
was a darkness
in which something red
wriggled like a tadpole
in a silty pond
 
and a wind rushed
in one ear and out the other
to the sound of crashing trees
 
he fell to the floor
unable to move
like a turkey trussed
and ready for the oven
 
he heard his lover’s voice
as the tiny tinkle
of a charm bracelet
 
glimpsed her platinum hair
 
she bent down beside him
whispered
“serves you right asshole”
in his ear
 
the good drug
was unsympathetic
but remained close by
in case she was needed
 
she couldn’t help herself
 
her bad drug was him
 

​ON MARKET DAY

​Along the dusty track,
an old man is herding
a whirling flock of banshees
to market.
Following behind, a young boy
belts the rump of a sagging unicorn
with a long birch rod.
It's a sorry race between
the beast being sold
or dying in its cloven tracks.
And then, out of the woods,
steps the sprightly, rotund slave-trader
hauling this month's batch
of gypsy children, runaways,
and castoff royal mistresses.
Two grave-robbers in a rickety trap
urge their horses forward,
A body part not fresh
may as well have stayed behind with the body.
It's market day
and children catch newts to sell to witches.
or lumps of old lead for the alchemist trade.
There's something for everyone.
whether it's to feed the family
or raise ancestors from the dead
And prices range from pennies to pounds
to your first born or your soul.
Old wives, of course, chatter in the background.
swapping old wives' tales.
And hunchbacks shop, for their vampire masters,
virgin on the bone.
A little West Indian girl is crying because
her mommy won't buy her pins
to go with her new dolly.
And to think,
the dolly didn't
use to look like her mother.
 

​EMMA, BEAUTIFUL IN THE DARK 

​Let it be always midnight,
no windows, no highways,
just bodies and breath.
In daylight,
the skin has a curse on it.
Call it death.
Call it homeliness.
But hold up the mirror in the dark.
See the face continue
beyond just faces.
In the blackness,
even a thought can be a face.
A feeling likewise.
Like the breathing can be
a world and all the people in it.
The air and the earth...
just recipes really.
Just scattered pieces
at the mercy of
how you assemble them.
Your legends begin with touch,
with the glide down to see
how well made you are.
While there, check on the
nation of your loveliness.
See how its people are bearing up.
 
 

​NIGHT SHIP

​upon these wrinkled sheets,
the slave ship of the night,
the grizzled commandant,
the whistling oars
condemn this restless dark
to deathly ocean,
its cruel swell
to the stuff of journeys
 
while I, with no wish to go anywhere,
whistle for sanity
like it's the dog in the shadow,
with fur enough to grip,
tongue to lash me to these docks
 
and here's the great vessel
with no origin in man,
no respect for nature,
that needs to move,
to be some other place,
that drills in me
a conceit to match my terror,
that it only needs
one muscle more,
would pay me
in my own splattered blood
for the pleasure