recent posts

Sunday, April 2, 2023

Featuring John Grey

 


SOUTH BEACH COUGAR

 

on her doorstep,

suitors and their flowers

tremble like grasses after a storm- 

 

her bedchamber

hi the big blue room

is happy to see them -

 

she is beloved, besought

but men's tongues are not

always to be believed—

 

they're younger than her children

some of them

and their skins

are inevitably copper-brown

 

with bleached hair, 

imprint of surfboards on their under-arms,

and a lie to air-brush

every wrinkle of her fading looks -

 

thanks to gigolos and wealth,

and an avoidance of mirrors,

she can imagine herself

still twenty five -

 

yes, she knows money

can't slow the passage of years

but she likes the way

it get time's attention -

 

 

 

 

SLEEPING BEAUTY

 

You’re in no endless sleep

from which some prince’s kiss

can wake you.

 

You’re merely lying on the couch

on a Saturday afternoon,

sweating with boredom,

mindlessly flipping channels on the television.

 

And you’re not in this condition

because some wicked fairy

cast a spell on spindles.

 

There’s no such things as fairies

and you’ve never sewn

a damn thing in your life.

 

The responsibility lies

with you and reality.

It’s like a dare.

Who will be the first to budge?

No, this is not a story

like your mother once 

recited at your bedside.

 

It’s “get off the damn couch

and do something”,

the tale she reads from now.





WHY I MARRIED A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN

 

I would

never have been satisfied

with just anyone.

 

Besides,

I needed to be smug

as well

as happy.

 




CIGARETTE PACK GUY

He was always looking down -
at the sidewalk, the grass, the road.
He collected cigarette packs,
empty ones,
boasted, to anyone who'd listen,
that he had at least a thousand brands.

Most people avoided him.
Some reckoned there never were
a thousand different brands
of cigarettes.
Even the diehard smokers
could only name you five.

No one knew his name.
They just called him cigarette pack guy.
One day, kids broke into his apartment
and stole his Luckies Go to War
and Buffalo Cigarrillos.
They left behind his pension check
so the cops never took it seriously.

When he knew he was dying,
he tried to donate his collection
to the local college.
They shook their heads
and smirked behind his back.

After his funeral,
a cleaning crew tossed
every last packet into the trash.
They were buried.
He was burned.

"Ashes to ashes," the pastor said.
But nothing about what they came in.

 

 

 

THERE IS A TOWN

 

Where folks are awoken nightly 

at 2.00 a.m. by complete silence.

 

And where the possible seldom happens

and the impossible never does.

 

And no kid who graduated from the local high school

ever showed up for a 20th reunion.

 

And nobody gets funky.

And there’s at least three guys, 

living on the same street, named Cameron.

 

And there’s nothing about a cow that the people don’t know.

Sheep, however, are a different story.

 

And the mayor is always willing to honor someone 

with the ceremonial key to the town, but no one’s ever 

taken him up on the offer.

 

And everybody takes just enough pride in what they do

so that they don’t have to aim higher.

 

And life goes on as before

and before that as well.

 

And there is shame in being depressed

but not in voting to shutter the library.

 

And average parents nurture average offspring.

And no one fears change because there is none.

 

And people only volunteer for tasks that can be

accomplished within a half-hour.

 

And no one is considered morbidly obese 

until their hearts explode and, even then, only in passing.

 

And young men shave off their beards before 

anyone suggests they do.

And some of the women let theirs grow.

 

And the highway is fifty miles to the east.

And it was just forty miles away a week ago.






Bio:John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Rathalla Review. Latest books, "Covert", "Memory Outside The Head" and "Guest Of Myself" are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.

No comments: