Poems
by John Grey

 

Decibels

 

I'd live in orange milkweed if it were a country.

I'd travel the lands of birdsong,

sleep in the vale of streams.

 

But nature,

for all the purity of its intent,

is obsessed with people.

It herds them in great numbers,

makes them live shoulder to shoulder,

attitude to attitude,

belief to belief.

 

I get along fine with Solomon's seal,

the skittish rabbit on the trail

and the breeze, even when its gets so full of itself,

and becomes wind.

 

But I've neighbors on either side

and they have me.

The air is thick with others breathing.

Every sound is littered with their words.

 

I either make allowances

or go to war on these intrusions

into my sense of self.

 

Sometimes, I just turn up my music loud.

 

 

 

 

 

The Catch In A First Catch

 

The boy’s knife nervously scraped the fish’s belly,

while his father looked on.

It was his first catch,

a shiny grey thing,

done flapping to death,

now in need of a slit from his blade,

the peeling back of skin,

the insides splayed open,

bloody and murky,

the flesh parted from the life

at its core

to cook on the flame,

devour in unspoken ceremony.

 

His father was growing impatient.

The son had seen the big man

slice open, grope out the innards,

a dozen or more times.

But his hands felt so small,

and the fish too lifelike.

“Here, give it to me,”

said the man, angrily.

He filleted the creature

in a couple of quick breaths.

It was still the boy’s first catch.

But not yet his first compliment.

 

 

 

 

 

Eating Alone

 

I’ve yet to receive a menu

but everyone at all the other tables

is either eating already

or, at least, ordering.

 

Glasses clatter at a loud work get-together.

Couples moon over raised wine-glasses.

Even the family with the annoying kids

are chowing down on more plates of food

than they have mouths.

 

I’m not working.

I have no lover.

Not even a family.

Is that my problem?

 

Waiters zip by me,

ignore my raised hand,

my lowered expectations.

 

 

 

 

 

Household Day

 

Another day ends.

People argued

but they all survived.

Sensibilities were rubbed red raw.

There were tears

and, of course, recriminations.

Voices didn't care to articulate.

They were used as weapons.

Nobody,

from the patriarch and matriarch

to the newest born child

escaped unscathed.

There's a price to pay

for living together.

Bodies are jam-packed

with contradicting lives.

The most gentle of contact

is fierce.

Conversation can't back away from hurt.

Even eyes meet like boxers is in a ring.

But it's time for sleep now.

Wounds are surveyed.

Prayers do the rounds.

Everyone figures

it could be much worse.

And then they dream

that it’s even better.

 

 

 

 

 

Stroll

The wind is huge enough to rough the trees
but barely ripples our hair, our faces.
The moon's so full, it features its own line
of sidewalk shadows.
But do we look up? No. Not once.

For we're so much ourselves we can't detect
this world beneath is carving out a circle,
that sky is sated with other suns and planets.
All of this because we're here, this moment
fetching hands from out of each other's bodies,
enclosing them with just a little of what
we're still prepared to share.

The houses, the cars, are more willing than ever
to serve their role as backdrop.
Their lights are simple glows,
in envy of your eyes.
Even the church, that bastion
to how small we really are,
grants us, this once, our massive tread.

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