Poems by John Grey

FATHER AND DAUGHTER IMMIGRANTS

In a strange country,
he felt older than his years.
The language was so much younger
than what his tongue delivered hesitatingly.
And the crips bank notes
felt fresh off the printing press.
They bore no long history
like all that old world money.
And then there was his daughter –
22 on her last birthday.
That was more like 13 in American years.

He was an immigrant.
Here for a better life
was what he first told himself.
But, gradually, the conversation changed to,
“Here to die so that others might live.”
Like Serena.
She let go her origins
like they were some fluttering handkerchief
on a windy day.
His heritage was a coffin,
only good for lying down in.
Serena was the shine on its outside.
She was also the lowering lid.

 

COUPLING

As you were,
the faded blue jeans,
the blue and white striped top,
brown hair to your shoulders –
I give that memory a ten,
and wish the scale allowed for more.

As you are,
any more resolute and you’d be
my backbone,
any more faithful,
an apostle,
though I’m sure no god.

Actually, I prefer
as we are,
side by side,
neatly packaged, self-contained,
smiles like generals
after a lifetime of victories.
 

WALKING BY THE OLD HOUSE

The fence is broken, half on its side.
It no longer has anything to keep out,
to hold in.

I am thankful my childhood is not this busted,
that those years are free
of shattered glass, toppled shingles.

And I am glad that it has other ways
to preserve its houses,
to hold the rooms together,
and keep that fence upright.

I can follow two timelines –
reality and memory.

One with its deteriorating neighborhoods,
shuttered storefronts, vacant trash-filled lots.
And the other with its fresh paint-coats,
proud cars in the driveways,
boisterous children playing
in each other’s backyards.

One that figures me
for a stranger in these parts.
One that knows me.

 

IT'S ANOTHER NIGHT

Another night
interspersed with genuflection
and the worst that can happen.
Noise, the hooded stranger,
is at it again -
heat-pipe cough, curtain rustle
you name it,
he does it to my nerves.
Another night
where my flesh flutters
like a wind-shook
jack-in-the-pulpit,
and my bravest whistle
is adopted by
the notes of a funeral dirge.

Another night where a bed-ridden man
waits eagerly for death
and yet lives in fear of dying,
as shadow crawls across the sheets like spiders
and the pillow grasps me with a strangler's hands.

Another night where my mind
chants wordlessly inside my skull,
my heart takes refuge behind my ribcage
and my will is evicted by my spine.
When I was young,
I couldn't go to sleep
with the lights out.
Now, I won't sleep a damn
until my lights
are out everywhere.