Carnival Dancer
She’s not so much a dancer
as someone who grows lither,
less inhibited with the music.
It’s her gift to strangers,
on a street, intermittently lit,
in contrast to the deep black of her hair,
the eye-liner,
propped by lips blood-red as cherries,
waving her chrysanthemum,
castanets clicking like cash-registers
to the strum of fat guitars.
Crescent moon, warm evening,
from doorway lamp to doorway lamp,
then tracing, with dark fingernails,
the electric spark of the riverbank,
flaunting the knife strapped to her thigh,
lovingly retrieved from its hiding place,
the perfect prop for a move
as sinfully graceful as eleven at night,
with occasional laughter, an odd trumpet,
all part of the costume.
Cat’s eyes, locks plastered down the middle,
cheeks powdered, from plaza to narrow street,
she can draw on public sex
she has never used in private,
eyes the families
that come out once a year,
feel, in watching her,
the erotic shiver of the city.
Gutter Man
Nothing like pools of last night’s rain
for some breathtaking views of your reflection
and good times had by all
rippling in water.
And you live nearby with your mother
though you’ve forgot where exactly
and sleeping is sleeping
whether on a bed or in the gutter,
though that’s no ceiling
but a cop standing over you,
all in blue, with a face
where the moon ought to be
in the first rays of daylight,
and his gun keeps materializing
on his right hip – bang! bang! bang!
wait a minute…that’s your head.
Getting Back There
You leave the city,
don't stop driving
until the land flattens out
and farms fall into view.
You're on course for the rural heart
of the country,
miles of straight white fences,
cornfields stringing gold from silo to silo,
town to town,
RD numbers and wooden mailboxes
carved with a family name.
Forget the droughts,
the miserable yields, the vampire bankers
and the unforgiving commodities market.
You sense something as pure
as a scrub clean in a porcelain tub
under a sloped ceiling,
a star-tippled skylight.
You reckon on a homeliness
as beckoning as a sit on a porch
in late afternoon, at the dimming of the sun,
cured by wind-borne farmyard smells.
You're geared to such delights
as early morning scouring a barn for eggs
or leaning on a fence,
watching a tractor work the land,
or crows hobnobbing on a power line.
You get here
just as farmers are down to their last dime,
can't wait to get out.
And wives, as bruised as the earth,
can no longer hold back.
And the backs of sons are bloodied
by the strap..
And a daughter,
looks out the window for city lights.
sees only stars,
those sparkling betrayers of distance.
It's how it's always been.
It's how it never was.
Congratulations, you've made it.
Congratulations, you can't tell the difference
Rainbow
It's up to you now, Laura.
I've suffered through the storm,
the nearest thing I know to divine judgment.
You promised rainbows. Show me.
No, not some of your buttermilk pancakes.
Or even that wine you've been saving.
I want my prism of droplets refracting and reflecting
the white light of the sun.
Don't screw up your face like that.
Stare out the window for me.
Find me that diaphanous spectrum.
There are colors out there surely
and brighter, lovelier than peacock feathers.
You think you're so clever bringing me food and drink.
But I can't taste my way clear. A forkful of that,
a sip of this - where's the awareness?
I've been bullied by the sky.
It's not up to you to make amends.
Just describe the brilliant hues of the rainbow to me.
And how they fill up time and space
Or float out ahead of the body, touching everything.
Let me know that they have our hearts, our souls.
And, oh yes, make sure
they're willing to defend them.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the Seventh Quarry, La Presa and California Quarterly.
