Hello Goodbye - John Grey

You cannot pin me down.
I’m here one minute. Gone the next.
I travel light and fast,
from city to town to lonely farmhouse
on the prairie to solitary gas station
off a long flat desert road.
I’m speedier than a virus
and just as hard to focus on.
But I leave my mark.
Midnight or noon and every
shade in between, I can be there,
a moment before I’m not.
You can’t sleep me away.
I cycle through dreams.
Or take long walks.
I can always keep up.
If I need to be,
I’m where you are.
If I don’t, that’s because
I’m already done with you.
I’m not God.
Hell no.
But not the devil, either.
Red flesh and horns don’t suit me.
If you feel sometimes
like strangling the woman,
then you’ve got my message.
But if you smash a glass
against the wall instead,
don’t blame me.
That’s your doing.

* * *

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Leading Edge, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in The Fifth Di, Space and Time and Holy Flea.

 

 

My Suzette - John Grey

So what happened
to your resolution
to give up killing.
Starting when?

Last night, you said
that bloodlust was behind you.
Yet you broke your promise somewhere
between a walk in the park
and the drunk you saw
tottering from the bar.

So what other vows
have you broken of late?
Are you still seeing Vince?
Are you on the needle again?

You drop a severed hand
at my feet. mutter,
"I’ll never do it again."

Just like you.
Soften me up with a gift.

* * *

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Leading Edge, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in The Fifth Di, Space and Time and Holy Flea.

 

Your Night Creature - John Grey

The night is held together
by whispered stories,
by a dark that throbs
with heavy passions,
peerless desires.

Eager to exist even in sleep,
you float upon the wave
of cooling seas,
of tender-winged blankets,
tresses and plumes.

The window opening is redundant.
Windows have already
swung wide deep inside you.

The creature is merely
a less smiling portrait
of the seducers of your every moment.
He moves toward you,
all strange regret and plotting grief,
a mask of seriousness
sprinkled with absurd magic,
a love proud and tingling
like a hand over a flame.

His face drifts through your blindness,
his eyes like beasts running at liberty,
cheeks nuanced out of color.
a ravine of a mouth.

He bites angel footsteps, rain of stars.
He bites human freight, gorgeous ruins.
He bites radiant surprise, abrupt splendor.
Your body sways like a lantern
on a railway platform
as trains come in, go out.
Your blood sings for these sacred excursions.
What could be theft
is really something ancient
given back.

* * *

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Leading Edge, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in The Fifth Di, Space and Time and Holy Flea.