JohnGrey

You can't hear the snowfall in the rooms.
You have to go outside,
stand on the porch,
in the dark, with just the white flakes coming down.
There can't be people,
or things, or even details,
just white mounds of what's already fallen,
with stillness, the only shape,
quiet, for a horizon.
There can't be branches or leaf
or grass or weed.
No car that couldn't squeeze
in the garage.
No bicycle forgotten on the lawn.
Whether in the sky or on the ground,
it can't shine like crystal,
glow like stars.
It must remind you of nothing but itself,
pure, incessant, piling high.
No room for hurt or disappointment,
these less tangible versions
of the wall, the face.
Snow comes down because
there's snow already where it's landing.
Snow's on the ground
to show the snow where it should fall.

Australian born poet, playwright, musician. Latest book is "What Else Is There?" by the Main Street Rag. Recently in Hubbub, South Carolina Review and Journal Of The American Medical Association. email jgrey10233@aol.com

Previously Published on Mannequin Envy

Spring 2006

A MORNING TRIAL

The light in the morning
is the worst kind of prosecuting attorney.
None of his where were you last night crap
but where are you now.
The drapes won't come to my defense.
That sun could find a fingerprint
on the wing of a fly
and I've jerked plenty of those free
from flapping fly torsos in my time.
The brightness is a ghoul.
It shines its insinuations
on every line in my face,
every red streak across my eyes.
It tells some nameless jury
of wall-clocks and photographs
that I deserve fifty years
for what I feel like this morning.
I pour coffee into a chipped cup,
call on that hot steamy liquid
to speak up for me.
I splash cold water down my face,
cool droplets of character reference.
The morning backs off a little now.
Its arguments bounce off
the brushing of my teeth,
the running of the shower,
the blood gunning its caddy
down the highways of my veins.
Sure I got a beer gut that'd
like nothing better than to sell me out.
And there's that pain in my neck
that's wearing a wire.
But there's so many like me
the light can't be sure
that I was the one.
I get dressed, I'm out the door,
I'm on the road, I'm off to work.
Once again, they couldn't pin a thing on me.
Once again, that feels like a sentence anyway.

fall 2005

My Date Has A Pet Iguana

Body still,
its eyes siphon off my movement.
Wherever I am in this room,
the watch goes on.
Surely its head just turned
but why does it feel as if
it was the walls, the ceiling,
that rotated on command
of that gray head, scaly hide,
razor claws, the spines along its back,
pendulous dewlap.
"He's friendly," she says.
It's good to know, up front,
what someone means by friendship.

nodopaka

sculpture and photo by Alex Nodopaka

Diver Dan

I left the world where I was just one more
to this place where I parlayed
my size and strength
into the most powerful beast going.
For as long as I could hold my breath,
I loomed large over the tiny scattering fish.
It was a silent, almost invisible kingdom,
and a brilliant, slithering, foot-kicking coup
on my part.
I could not see you on the bank,
feel your apprehension.

But later, I would know your calm,
when I emerged dripping and gulping for air.
It was back to needing you and not knowing why.
It was back to less penetrable worlds
and wondering who ruled there.

"Rain"by Cecilia Ferreira

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