By: John Grey

RESPECTS AS PAID

By a grave, day pulls close the curtains.
The air creaks, plays foul notes,
like a violin unstrung.
Grass is damp and unloved.
Trees droop like mourners.
Broken-winged angels, cold mausoleum
nothing here speaks well of life.

Expecting death at every turn
of the well-trod cemetery trail,
I am not disappointed.
On every stone, an end date.
By each cross, shriveled flowers.
Why am I not buried also?
My own breath surprises me.

But I’m here to remember.
The photographs, the conversations,
the personal histories in my head,
aren’t good enough, apparently.
I must disinter from the actual spot.
Bones with lively flesh on them
now have coffins to thank
for their continuing survival.
I have my orders –
pay your respects.
So it’s death all around
if people are to live in me.

THE LAST ACT

I never liked the elephants.
Their eyes had the look of someone
who’s seen too much.
And still must perform on cue.

As for the big cats,
I always feared for the so-called tamer.
Until I grew old enough to understand
what was really going on.
Then I became a cheerleader
for the lions and tigers.

Popcorn was sacred of course,
grease and salt, communion wafers
for those too young to need saving.

Clowns?
They hid behind paint.
Made fools of themselves
but without their real faces.

And then there were the girls –
ah, the girls.
They were painted like movie stars,
balanced on white horses.
One hung by her teeth
high above the crowd.
Another walked a wire.

I came every year.
The crowd thinned.
The tent sagged.
The train rusted in a railyard.

Now it’s just me
and a blonde with blue eyes
swinging from the rafters…
a memory I can’t let go.

There’s a net below.
It holds.
But only while I breathe.

BRAD AND HIS RECORD

As a young man, he was a boxer.
He won ten and lost three,
according to his memory.
Nothing defines a man
as succinctly as a won-loss record.
We all have such a thing
but he’s lucky.
He can express his numerically.

With me,
there were my tussles
with women.
All draws as far as
I’m willing to admit.
And family…
after so many years,
the ref still hasn’t
stopped the fight.
As for work…
I’m feeling punchy
but I’m still on my feet.
And then there’s the writing.
But who’s the opponent?
My imagination
or a scrawny piece of paper?

I let him go on bragging
how he won ten
and lost three.
For I have no comeback.
In summarizing a life,
it’s a win for him
and a loss for me.
It figures to be no contest.

IN EXILE

I am reading
about the scream in the dead of space,
imagining the sound I would make
if nothing could hear,
how, even knowing there was
not a living soul within light years,
I’d still throw back my head
and wail my human heart out,
until my voice
echoed through canyons,
ricocheted off mountains.
I’m reading
about the shack in the woods,
the empty room
but for the chair and table
and the bottle of booze
and the man with his fingers
wrapped around it
and the sweat bubbling out
of his flesh like the tears tottering
from his eyes
and the sobs growing louder and louder
though he’s alone in the forest
and the trees could care less
and the night creatures, even
if they knew about blood and nerve
and bone, still wouldn’t make
the connection.
I’m imagining when the screaming’s done,
the indelible human residue
in the thin, cramped walls,
or out in the vastness,
the relentless wake of sound waves.

###

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, Writer’s Block and Trampoline.