JOHN GREY

 

 

The Solitary Art

 

I’m reading all this poetry.

It’s poets who, even when

other people are around,

all that comes across

is their solitude.

 

They’re at a family gathering

where everybody’s bragging

about how well they’re doing.

But off in a corner

with some uncle

poking them in the chest

and assailing them with a stiff, loud,

“when are you going to get a real job.”

 

Or they’re with a woman

up in their apartment,

the romance is on track,

but then the talk turns

to the future,

making a life together,

and the room fades,

the woman shrinks down to nothingness

and they’re as alone

as Robinson Crusoe

before Friday entered the picture.

 

In nature, of course,

they’re the odd one out.

In childhood,

they’re isolated by the fact

that nobody understands them.

 

Which brings me to myself,

here, in an otherwise empty house,

and reading all this poetry.

These poets preach to a lonely choir.

 

Dealing With It

 

Five years back, the telephone woke me around eleven

at night, and my trembling fingers somehow managed

to lift the receiver, press it to my ear.

Before that call, prior to Ellen's car-crash,

my world wasn’t so complex, a solid core with a fuzziness

around the edges, composed of people I knew, strangers I didn’t.

 

But in the sweaty July aftermath,

I gravitated to friends, cursed the Almighty,

took on the role of the permanently aggrieved.

But, in reality, I was okay, unharmed.

 

Sure, recalling that time, I prefer

the idea of a huge disruption to my being,

a rip a mile long from head to toe,

an internal bleeding that couldn’t be explained

in terms of blood.

 

That situation I see now as a line in my life’s sand,

beginning of its latest stage. It has not been

a pumped-up, getting-of-wisdom-of-age time,

more like a realization as to who and how I am

at any given moment.

Like a fall from half-way up a mountain,

feeling for broken bones, looking for bruises,

at an emotional ground-zero.

 

I confess that I have been making up how I should feel

as I’ve gone along, concocting a creed

in an attempt to waylay any guilt I might have

over letting Ellen go, not feeling sorry enough.

 

Tuesday night as I was nibbling left-over pizza

and spot-checking old photographs, I succumbed to

the true mood of the moment - it was more than chilly,

but frozen and solid so, in a bid to thaw,

I started humming the tune - our tune.

 

To The Wife Of A Pioneer

 

There’s a lot of Hawkeye in me.

I could live in a forest.

At least, if I didn’t have this need

for three square meals a day

and a comfortable bed.

 

I’m an adventurer at heart.

Wild animals don’t bother me.

Except at night.

And any hour when it’s wolves or bears.

 

I’m a man of nature.

I can deal with the solitude.

Besides who’s alone

amidst all these lush green trees?

Other than another

lush green tree that is?

I must admit they’re of little use

when you need someone to talk to.

 

If I was as much Daniel Boone

in mind and body

as I am in dreams,

then you wouldn’t see me

for years on end.

I’d be out there in the wilderness.

Not hunkered down

in this cozy home.

 

Just be grateful that who I am

has a ways to go

before I’m who I imagine myself to be.

At least, be as grateful as I am.

 

JOHN GREY

 

JOHN GREY:  Is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and Tenth Muse. Latest books, “Subject Matters”,” Between Two Fires” and “Covert” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review and Cantos.