By John Grey

BREAKDOWN USA

We’re broken down in the middle of nowhere
though you insist this is Iowa.
I no longer believe in maps
like I no longer have faith hi American manufacturing.
A ribbon of smoke rises from the car’s engine.
I imagine choking my mechanic with it.
Corn flourishes hi all directions.
That’s just like corn to act so superior.
It has the sun, the soil, the rain, on its side.
We’re reliant on some all-thumbs oaf
out of Detroit.
No, this is not Iowa.
It’s the state of ill-luck, misplaced confidence
and a few well-chosen cuss words
that terrify the crows.
Of course, thanks to a farmer’s telephone call,
a tow-truck comes along,
hauls our miscreant automobile to the nearest town.
And everybody’s friendly.
And the meal at the local diner,
while we wait for the garage’s judgment
is the best we’ve had all trip.
Even the motel where we stay overnight
is comfortable, and there’s something to be said
for waking up to cool, fresh,
Midwestern country air.
In fact, that night in that no-name place
hi (okay I agree with you, it is Iowa)
proves to be the highlight of our excursion.
We make love and it’s not even Saturday night.
I have to admit that
sometimes finding yourself
where you never did plan to be
can be as pleasurable, as inspiring,
as reaching where you’re actually headed.
I don’t have to tell you that.
You’re already on board.
But I don’t let the car in on our little secret.
It’s either run smooth or scrapheap.
And leave the epiphanies to us.

THE OUTSIDE CAFE

The attractive young woman at the next table
ties her poodle to her chair.

“Does she speak French?” I ask.
The woman laughs so charmingly.

“No. And my Doberman’s German is crap.”
How sweetly she says the word “crap.”

A elderly couple arrive dragging
two uncooperative Lhasa Apsos

who are more interested
in the décor’s garden bed

then watching their masters
sip lattes in the warm June sun.

And, I imagine, their Tibetan
is no better than the Doberman’s German.

I’m intrigued by people’s dogs.
Those animals say more about them

than any overheard conversations.
Guy with pit-bull thinks he’s tough.

Woman with Maltese puppy in her lap
is warming up to having babies.

Man with bulldog doesn’t get about much.
Solitary teenage girl with Yorkie is timid.

As for me, I have no dog.
Allergies to dander, that’s my problem.

But I love dogs.
Look my way. Can’t you see.

Mine is a dogless story.
The woman with the poodle

is a good example.
I want what I can’t have.

CIRCLE

I cannot begin to tell you
because I am already telling you.
In fact, I would be done telling you
except that this entire telling is a circle
so there really is no end either.

Whatever it is I’m telling you,
to be honest, I don’t even know myself.
It could be feelings,
hospitable or hostile,
affectionate or belligerent.
It may be my real life story
or the one I once imagined.

It doesn’t need my lips to move.
Or your ears to be aware.
Like now, when all is quiet,
but you’re still being told.

OTHER PEOPLE

When will they get here
and how will I know
they are here?
Will they be the ones
in baseball caps
spun around backwards,
bodies thrust up
out of the hands
tight in their pockets?
Will they be the
sea-captain
driving the schooner
through the saw-toothed reef
or the woman
bending down
to study her reflection
in the river,
her face,
purple and yellow
in the twilight?
Will my life be
in their keeping
or will we slip through
each other like ignorant shadows?
Are they one stranger
in this boisterous ballpark?
Or are they all the strangers?
Do they look for me,
hunt for me,
in this maddening cacophony,
where I know no one
and they use that as a weapon?
Or do they ignore me,
shunting me off to the side
of their machinations,
almost willfully?
Look, there’s a couple of them.
One smiles in my direction.
The other steers clear.

STAGGER

I stumble down the sidewalk
like it’s a shoreline and
the cement is sand, the
cracks, rocks. In a
shop window,
my neck is as long
as a giraffe’s and my
eyes wear something
black and white and chiffon.
The curb is a clifftop.
The traffic heaves like waves.
I step out carefully but
almost lose my foot to a bus.
Once, I could walk with ease.
But the surfaces are now
wonky and weird,
the images surreal,
the populace,
unthinking and dangerous.
I blame myself.

THE TRIP CROSS COUNTRY

Even the cheapest motels
were beyond our meager capital.
At night, we’d sleep under the stars
in whichever field would have us.
On a warm night,
light is a blanket like no other.

We were headed for California,
taking backroads
so the vast Midwest wouldn’t feel
like we were ignoring it.
We ate at roadside diners,
elbows on the counter like truckers.
Our stomachs rebelled as best they could.

True, the locals never took to us.
When we opened our mouths,
the East Coast came spilling out,
too fast, too clipped,
for country drawl.
We weren’t there to make friends,
just have strangers seem less strange that’s all.

We saw a lot of wheat, horizons worth of corn,
and silos and cattle and farmers
and even a city or two
but none with any bookstores.
We even were witness to a harvest queen
being crowned.

We didn’t stop for everything.
How could we?
But we sampled,
tried to take disparate images
and reactions and perceptions
into, if not the big picture,
a big picture.
That didn’t work either.
The waitress in Kentucky
was not the farmer in Nebraska.
The hills and plains didn’t gel.
It’s a big country.
You can end a journey
and still not get started.

###

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and The Alembic. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review and Cantos.