JOHN GREY

JOHN GREY

CHILD OF A SIXTIES’ CHILD

So what was it

like to have had

hippie parents,

live on a commune

until the age of twelve,

more brothers

and sisters than

there were hash pipes

in your hovel,

and every woman

over eighteen your aunt

if not your mother.

Okay, so you don’t

want to talk about it.

it’s an embarrassment

like something out

of one of those bad

Billy Jack movies.

At thirteen, you

had sat through

at least fifteen

Gratefiul Dead

concerts but

could hardly spell

your name “Rainbow.”

When did you change

it by the way?

When did a real

education intervene.

one that saw you

off to college

eventually and

into law school?

You don’t believe

in all that ashram,

karma, junk.

Live by rules

or live in shit,

you tell me.

You still see

your parents from

time and time.

He’s thin and bald

walks with a cane.

She’s still a mop

of gray hair to her ass

though her hearing’s

half-way gone.

You love them,

you confess.

But not because love’s free.

THE NEWS FROM BAGHDAD

He is to misery as Polyhymnia is to musk.

Catch him on a good day and he will merely spit on you.

At his worst, he’ll fling the name of his youngest son at you

so as it strikes you high above the temple.

“William!” he screams. “William! William! William!

There are many of us in this town with William scars.

His heart’s as rancid as rotting fruit and his head’s no help.

He can’t separate in his mind the stores, the houses,

from the cow dung in the field.

And the people are just inmates so what’s it matter

that his crazies smack down their crazies

with a “William! William! William!”

See him coming and poets take to the trees.

Mothers hide their children, sans especially.

And lovers are especially afraid.

Two can’t be one, not according to his venomous logic.

One can’t even be one. And they’d better not try.

“William!” he screams, just in case.

MORNING OF THE EIGHTH MONTH

So far, this pregnancy,

nothing has been stabbed,

broken, ripped apart.

The body takes no stand

against itself

even as it nurtures.

It’s all been a blunt pain,

a dull ache, a twist, a cramp.

But no explosions.

No rough thump to the heart.

Something takes shape

but leaves most other shapes alone.

And nothing has spoke up

from behind the swell of stomach.

No demands have been made.

It didn’t ask to come out early.

Or stay late in the womb.

But it’s a presence.

A soft kick like a kiss

on too tender a place.

Flesh and bone

making itself known.

She wakes to a sickness

she’ll remember as a healing.

JOHN GREY

JOHN GREY is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Harpur Palate and Columbia Review with work upcoming in the Roanoke Review, the Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly.