by John Grey

YOUR DAY

This is your day.

You awaken at 6.00.
Before you even rub your eyes,
you already have no illusions. 

You work ten hours
as a bank auditor,
ensuring the books aren’t cooked.

Then it’s home to 
your favorite guy,
a makeshift dinner,
a night on the couch watching TV.

You crawl into bed at eleven
and dream nothing 
that you haven’t dreamed before.

This is your day.

It contains just enough
to not embarrass you.
 





HAPPY EVER AFTER 

Happy ever after never rang true.
Once upon a time you could believe in.
After all, stories must begin somewhere.
There had to have been a stage 
in Red Riding Hood’s young life
when she had no idea of what wolves
were capable of.
Snow White, no doubt, entered 
a world as reassuring as her parent’s marriage.

But, once life intervened,
journeys just got darker.
No canine ever ate your grandma
but, from the age of ten,
you did have a wicked stepmother.
Many a day, a night, you felt 
alone in the forest.
But the rescue of childhood tales never came.

No princes
Not even a woodsman.
Instead you married an average guy
and he couldn’t even protect you from himself.
A drinking problem 
and a ready fist -
many ogres got their start that way.
For reasons more grim that Grimm,
you still do love the man.
But happy ever after
cannot stand the test of time.






 
EMMA’S LOOKOUT

The shriek of the terns is familiar,
so is the overlook, 
the sheer cliff at your feet
and the guard rail
you grip onto,
as the wind pummels
your long gray hair.

From above,
you look down on the beach,
the waves that roll up the shore,
fall back, dissolve, 
before forming and rolling again.
That’s how you prefer your memory –
for it to be what is happening now.

No need to know faces.
Or names.
Or where you put something.
Or how many times
you’ve worn this dress
since Sunday.

Your thoughts are scenery:
boats with great sails unfurled,
fishermen on a rock,
children splashing in the sea.

The narrower your mind,
the more the wideness fits.
It’s the size of a needle’s eye. 
But it gets you to the horizon.







BAD BOYS OF SUMMER					

Listless blue sky,
apathetic stream,
respite’s granted 
by occasional cloud
to those poor souls
who work the fields
in the heat of summer.
Boys with BB guns
scare the sparrows  from the bird bath.

Unmoving pines,
a statue of the Virgin,
dominate the hilltop.
Its lower reaches 
are overrun with ferns and vines,
occasional bee drone.
Deep in the thicket,
boys intimidate a squirrel
with a volley of stones.

Whatever can be vandalized
in a small way,
the boys are up for.
Like the pond’s paper boat flotilla
sailed by even younger boys.
One boy had a bow and arrow
but it was confiscated by his father,
Now he can only imagine 
it impaling the heart 
of a waddling wild turkey.
That’s how life gets to be futile
when it was really meant to be cruel.

Boys with slingshots
are like armed Goliaths
against the Davids of the woods.
Every moment, everywhere,
there’s something to be 
hurt, damaged or even killed.
But the ruin they cause
is swallowed by the vastness 
of the place.
They’ll be dead and buried 
before that scarred oak falls.
BAD BOYS OF SUMMER				

For now, it’s boredom and anger
that rules their lives.
It’s all they are shut out of.
And the narrowing of places
where they can make their mark.

A woodchuck peeps out
of its hole in the ground.
So what shall it be?
BB gun? Stones? Slingshot?
Too bad about the bow and arrow.
So much thought 
goes into their unthinking.







MIRACLE

The only blue is above our house,
the only still and silent trees,
the pines that shade us.
Not even the spider webs
that weave from branch to branch
are moving.

In the distance,
skies are as black as tea.
Dogs barks from a mile away,
wolves from a mile more.
.
But we're in this tiny enclave
of fair weather.
Even the menagerie,
inside and out,
are as calm as tree roots.

Lightning blitzes the horizon.
Thunder rumbles its response.
But the storm comes no closer.
The weatherman says something
about prevailing winds
but my folks put it down to prayer.

I'm in the yard,
playing in my protected world
while, far away,
the kids whose parents
don't work hard,
and who cuss and lie,
are inside, as bored as they are terrified,
by the battering rain.

The storm carves a wide circle eventually,
causing much damage in its wake.
But our neighborhood is untouched.
It's my first experience of a miracle.
The selectivity is what impresses me.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Santa fe Literary Review, and Sheepshead Review. His latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. He has work upcoming in the McNeese Review, La Presa and California Quarterly..