Five Poems by John Grey

 

MELISSA SCREAMED

 

as a last resort,

as a painted lady,

as an agitated tonsil,

as the trains

that clang and clatter by,

as an exploding water toss balloon,

as a too-late fine print reader,

as Arctic earth melting,

as someone incapable

in so many fields,

as dreams lied to,

as good as it gets

and how bad that is,

as her half-blind dolls

cradled in trembling arms

 

 

THE DEATH OF A SCHOOL HOUSE

 

It was a spring day

and I stood in tall, wet grass

watching wreckers demolish

the old brick schoolhouse.

I couldn't see the men

up in their cabins,

just the machinery lifting and turning,

its big ball swinging and smacking

against that ancient brick.

 

Ceilings collapsed,

walls buckled,

desks were demolished,

chairs busted,

and blackboards shattered.

A globe rolled away from the destruction,

stopped short of my feet.

The past was done for

but, at least, the world escaped. 

 

 

FIRST PARTY OF THE SUMMER

                               

I'm here because it's the place to be.

My car knows. That's why it parked so easily.

Despite the presence of the moon,

the sky is filled with daylight.

And I'm on time -

first Saturday night in summer.

Everyone's hanging out.

They may be strangers

but they know me.

 

I check my face in the rear view mirror.

Everything fits.

I'm here to live a life

instead of just writing it.

I have the street address in my pocket.

It's time to match paper to stoop,

anticipation to party.

 

People live in this neighborhood

and they're glad to be finally mellow.

Even the ones dragging groceries.

Especially those I follow through the front door

and up the stairs to apartment 2C.

 

First Saturday night in summer

and already a conga drummer has bloomed,

drinks are mixed in the exact image

of the partaker

and the preponderance of women

inspires me, for the first time in my life,

to use the word "fine" in a sentence.

For less than a minute,

f don't know anybody here.

The rest of the time,

I'm old friends

with a young woman majoring in economics

and a painter who's torn

between landscapes and abstraction. 

 

It's the first Saturday night in summer.

I don't drink too much,

plan to save myself for the end of the night,

the stumble into the street

where gravity needs all its weapons

to keep me earthbound.

Sure, 1 can shout "Party!" with the best of them.

But the good times just aren't about the instant.

They're required to last.

So I want this to be a capsule

I can take again and again.

It can’t just be a key

to doors already open. 

 

 

HER FAREWELL SPEECH

 

"You do not know how much you've meant to me," she said.

I ducked but still felt the swish of a right hand jab.

"I low rare it is to find someone like you."

Her tongue had a champ's capacity

for striking then retreating in an instant.

"In a life - you know - all small talk, odds and ends."

My head started to throb like the bass on a cheap boom box.

"And then we met."

Her words had that smooth gliding step

of a featherweight boxer.

"And it was good for so so long. But now..."

I was prepared for everything.

Just not a heavyweight's fist. 

 

 

SWINE OF THE TIMES

 

The cool refreshing

taste of Nazis.

A bag of magic

wifely duties.

An amputee's penis envy.

A mime giving

a sad hand job.

The miracle

of vaginal wind.

Count Chocula

versus famine

in the horn of Africa.

Playing "My Heart

Will Go On"

on the harmonica.

A sea of Lunchables.

Three Christopher Walkens

at the same time.

A gentle caress

of your inner Pope.

Half-assed hope.

A salty surprise

in your hitchhiker.

Leprosy among goblins.

Free samples of Nicolas Cage.

Bingeing and purging

during foreplay.

Feeding a breakfast burrito

to a one-year old.

Pretending to care

about Robert Downey Junior.

Repressed boogers.

Laser tongue removal.

An endless stream

of poor people

with diarrhea.

The invisible hand

of child beauty pageants.

Doing the hustle

during natural selection.

Pixelated chainsaws.

Historically black colleges

and the KKK

for a balanced breakfast.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Lana Turner and International Poetry Review.