John Grey

NOTES                                                                      

All of my notes are dancing feet.

They flap like a bird in still air.

Properties of anatomy.  Burning sensations.

No grief can capture it.

Bury me on a grassy shore, in a dark cloak of green.

A life works best as a permanent state of sacrifice.

Beat the drum. Bury the dead. Set shadows alight in winter.

Work is almost over. Crying no longer has a function.

For none of this is real anyhow.

Just faces masquerading as sermons,

behind the bars of a cage.

From one life to the next, there’s a wound that never heals.

If I could go back in time, the first thing I would do is wash my hands.

Handfuls of dirt from the throwing arm of an orphan.

Head is filled with laughing at the end of the day.

Numbers hollow out my head.

I dip a finger into the loneliness of Sunday.

I only know empty cupboards and locked doors.

Brain doesn’t suspect how much it needs my eyes.

In my stomach, you will find much mud and many fallen.

And rocks. And someone crying out “Thief! Thief!”

I long to see Venice someday.

Hopes are an empty bell ringing in heavy snowfall.

In the ceiling, cracks converge like an evil eye.

I walk like a book I cannot put down.

I wish on something to see if it’s good enough.

A dream is as unobtainable as a wren’s song.

I'm definitely amenable if it tastes good and my knees can stand the strain.

The ants, in my dreams, never find what

they’re looking for.

Life’s ingredients are like men with shovels digging where there’s pipes.

I hoisted a flag in my front yard and an angel tried to take it down.

I love the feel of a kite string though I fear the actual kite,

especially if it’s a paper dragon.

Alone in the universe, spent voices hang silent.

Light comes through the trees, my eyes retreat into blinking,

Listen. Somewhere out there, the mad fool is running.

He’s lucky to go unnoticed by his enemies.

Floors breathe. Mountains click their heels.

The past is a sinking ship bearing everything we’ve loved.

Much like the dead, I’m up to my head in mud.

My head weighs me down.

My clothes are scruffy.

A stray dog chewed my shoes.

My skin is a winter to come.

For now, it hibernates in my heart.

My wrists - the texture of gates –

have no need, other than to open.

My walking stick is the way ahead.

Whatever it is, no one knows what its means.

A light shines on it but no one is watching.

As for people, I push them away from my shape, my texture, my true hunger.

the starlight in my memory,

Sun has its finger on all of us though it needs no hands.

I talk like I should have my lips zipped

The only ones worth thinking about are the nameless.

The skies in my palms are blue.

Thoughts explore the pitch-black tunnels in my head.

The wells of black honey can't drown them fast enough.

YOU TRY TO DRAG ME HOME

& the comments:

/ I LOVE HOW ridiculously DRUNK you are

yes my mental state

is most pleased with

how shitty it can be –

just watch – load up on anecdotal evidence –

see if I can throw up an entire liver

the one I took in at birth

EVER SEEN / a man dance on a table

or interview AN INVISIBLE MAN

while his hands shake

& the microphone falls

I meant the drink spills

HOLY SHIT YES /

ONE OF THE stupidest nights ever

bad enough for you to talk about

I’m someone else now

no need to talk

my motto is:  if I drink it   they will come

why do you look at me this way?

has my image taken such a beating

that a smile is out of the question

I thought you’d LIKE this CHARACTER

HAHAHAHAHA  even

that he’d quickly become one of your favorites

SO DAMN COOL when he’s drunk

no one wants to admit it – especially you – but it’s true

maybe this is exactly how I want to be

minus the bar bill of course

I’m sacrificing my brain for my art you know

as for you

a mind is a terrible thing with which

to see another guy wasted

but at least I’m not aggressive

just appalling

& then there’s my charm

as always

trapped between your mood swings

there’s no better place to be

A NIGHT OF BAD INTENTION                                         

ache of daytime stops

            all the more reason to be afraid

amen to that – where’s God by the way –

and it's true that this is the time for the other to emerge    

            what devours as it goes    

            in between belches      a fuller silence –

so belief      pay attention    

tonight is a veracious cannibal with moons for teeth    

bodyless maybe

but with a taste for the bread of life –

            your only hope is that he spills enough of you

            for carrion crow to dine on later –

meanwhile    cat feeds on mouse

            brass clangs

blade punctures risk

            spills colors enough

            to emulate blood

fear speaks freely          the demon crows

the cup is chipped

                        salvation mutates into saliva

and whatever has changed

            is passed on to you –

you get to the point where decide what is light

deny the bulb          disbelieve the chandelier

summon the beast

pray your absolution is edible –

almost midnight    

an inaccurate eye is allowed at last    

you fly       you crawl    

forget again that frail glow of good intention.

time’s getting darker     growing cold

getting late - God is now a meal left out

on the kitchen table for another –

his billion-year-old goodness

            is sauce to the devil –

brazen red eye half-wild 

how it ends.   how the body changes

innocent old flesh

soured       rotting

weevil words you can’t pronounce

less afraid

now the bell of madness is ringing

             but still not time to ask a question

look now      in this room     

see the marrow  - the way the past hasn’t come

            no moon-children

            no metatarsals    

neither true eye is open

just the third          noisy and clanging

nothing is nearly as good as what happens in the dread that fails to clear -

observe the cruelty

the torture good as gold

the dragon cooking the dove with its breath

the pouncing cat

the crumbling of your knees

            the face in the clouds

            the overturned truck on the icy highway

            the heart rendered senseless

            rivers turning their back on the sea

every glint of shine blindfolded

the bright thing hereabouts nothing but a whisper

space possessed by whatever fills it

sudden stop            drowning burning

the process   vacant with evil

the wolf        the bear

bite down on your pressed finger

find their way into ink

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, New English Review and Tenth Muse. Latest books, “Subject Matters”, ”Between Two Fires” and “Covert” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Amazing Stories and River and South.