John Grey: New Poems

 

SUBWAY SAX

 

He’s the sax man

of the subway,

back to the wall,

sound facing the commuters.

 

His eyes

are passing shadows

as his instrument 

blows through 

and sometimes over

the surrounding babble.

 

No one hears him

in the way he’d dreamed

when he was younger.

This is no concert hall,

just an underground cocoon.

The crowd is no audience.

They’re waiting for a train.

 

They don’t know

Sonny Stitt from Stan Getz,

Cannonball Adderley 

from John Coltrane.

 

And, as folks occasionally

drop coins into his cup,

they’ve no idea

what it takes for 

a musician like him to survive.

 

He plays because 

there is no other way to live

They move on 

figuring there has to be.

 

 

 

 

FROM THEN TILL NOW

 

Our first apartment was 

a tiny kitchen, a cramped bathroom

and a bedroom the size of a coffin. 

 

We ate off packing crates.

Our bed was a hand-me-down futon.

 

Now, we dine on shiny Formica.

We sleep on springs and linen.

 

She’s proud of her zip code.

I’m best friends with our mortgage.

 

Her dreams can take a break

now that we live some place 

she’s always dreamed of. 

 

I lie awake staring at walls, the ceiling.

I love the way they keep their distance.

 

 

 

NEIGHBORHOOD STROLL

 

garden and hedge,

orchards and fenced fields –

 

they are the lesser nature

for my minor Wordsworth –

 

strolling a path

that crosses a one-block park –

 

a few random oaks

fill in for forest –

 

a squirrel takes the time

to not be a bear 

 

 

 

AN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD

 

I clearly

remember

 

someone telling me

 

though I can’t

remember who

 

that my childhood

had it all wrong

 

and that 

the Indians 

were the good guys

 

and it was

the cowboys

who were bad.

 

It was just

after I had

defended 

an imaginary fort

against an imaginary

Apache war party.

 

I then 

pretended to shoot

the kid 

who told me this.

 

The press

were the enemy

even then.

 

 

 

 

YOUR FAST GUY

 

His glove compartment

is stuffed with speeding tickets.

 

He collects them like...

you bite your thought like it's a tongue,

before the word "women" slips out.

 

He accelerates that convertible

on a straight stretch of highway

even though you beg him to slow down.

 

Your feelings, his needs,

and only one steering wheel.

Will it always be like this?

A crash? A breakup?

Blood or tears –

or even both.

 

He's going even faster.

Your heart plays ping pong 

with your throat.

You love him,

but not at this speed.

 

Finally, he stops, 

parks by an overlook.

"Lovely," you both say,

he for the dramatic scenery, 

you for the stillness.

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.