Poetry: John Grey

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Transcend, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in Blueline, Hawaii Pacific Review and Clade Song.

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MY FAVORITE THINGS                             Page One

It's Vienna of all places,

cold and old,

air swirls like waltzes

I don't want to dance to.

The band look like finger food

left all day on a plate,

don't play so much

as console their sad instruments.

Their sound is like a tape

recorded over and over

until the sharpness

is all muffled,

the resonance of glue.

Still, the bass player's

Monk in his heart,

the pianist's Ellington

to his fingers.

"Any requests," they ask,

and we're all mute

as the ashtrays on the tables

though in my thoughts

I'm saying, "yeah,

let it be '61,

Village Vanguard,

'Trane on sax,

Dolphy, Tyner,

Elvin Jones,

one of those panther moments

in a lifetime of

antelopes nibbling in the grass..,

spontaneous, visionary, improvised,

gut-squealing, mouth balling,

*** 

  

MY FAVORITE THINGS                             Page Two

jumping registers like dogs

through flaming hoops,

stretching the tempo out,

reshaping it like sculpture,

squeezing upper lower,

lower registers together

like sweaty bodies having sex.

The band respond to silence

with a by the numbers

version of "My Favorite Things,”

careful to include

none of mine.

*** 

JURY DUTY

Suddenly another life

is thrust squarely into mine.

And then there's the other eleven lives,

my fellow men and women of the jury

who, when the case in hand is not

up for discussion,

shunt their own cases to the forefront:

the lousy job, the errant husband,

the pain in the right leg that won't go away.

Before the defendant ever hears our verdict,

an entire life-style is found guilty,

a teenage daughter also, but with mitigating circumstances.

And then there's the government,

all agreed, a hanging matter.

But the jury finds a few innocents

in the hotbeds of crime in which they live...

mostly themselves.

The judge has given us ample direction,

has clarified some points of law.

And we have stared often enough

into the face of the young man in the dock

to bear that image to the grave.

But when it comes to each other.

we are all a jury in turn.

A mother of three confesses how

it's a relief just to get out of the house.

It's a sentence, she says, that can never be commuted.

A businessman keeps complaining

how this jury duty comes at a bad time for him.

A bad time finds the evidence stacked against it.

No one is above the law, so they say.

Thus the crush of those below the law.

 ***

ANNE SEXTON

I am mad because

I excuse my rings

from embarrassment.

Or there's no part

in jewelry's history of a life

for carbon as a gas.

I'm crazy because

I wrap myself in my

mother's for coat.

Maybe I'm just jealous

that no one wants

to wear my skin.

I'm a lunatic because

I choose., for company,

a glass of Vodka.

Damn, Ruskie.

What's wrong with Jim Beam?

Oh I agree,

I'm insane

when it comes to

starting up a car

in a locked garage.

But I am grounded.

They won't let me

anywhere near

the Lear jet

in the airless hangar.

Mad, crazy, lunatic, insane

because I didn't leave a note they say

as if forty years of notes

don't count.

 ***

THESE DEAD CATTLE

There they are now.

No mystery, these deaths.

One fallen in the dry creek bed.

Another just dropped

where the grass gave out.

Not a moan, a groan,

just a Georgia O'Keefe painting,

you could touch if you'd the stomach.

No kid's pet names these.

No identities.

Just two of a thousand herd

that wandered, got lost, paid for it,

died as a vulture's luck,

a lizard's indifference.

*** 

  

THE BASEBALL

I wonder if the stuff I left behind

has now become yours.

not just collecting dust on a mantel,

but emotionally embraced.

The Mexican vase for example.

“Madonna’s Greatest Hits.”

And especially

the baseball I snared in

the stands at Fenway Park,

and wouldn’t give to the small boy

no matter how he begged for it.

It’s in your keeping now.

You can have it mounted,

encased in glass.

Or toss it back and forth

to your new boyfriend

in the park.

Or dump it in the trash

for pickup Wednesday morning.

All of these things you did to me

when I was in your hands.

Now there’s just a baseball.

And I won’t be begging. 

Setu, February 2020