Poetry: Selections from John Grey

The Chair

 

There's always a kid

who dies unexpectedly.

He collapses on the basketball court

or he's hit by a truck

or some morning, he just doesn't

get out of bed,

not then, not ever.

 

There's always that first lesson

in "this is death",

long before you have a clue

what that means.

 

And it's someone you don't

know all that well

although now there's

this empty chair

and you can relate to that

more than when he filled it,

always turning around to stare

at the place

which provides no answers

to any of the teacher's questions,

that makes no sound,

not even a scraping.

 

And then some other guy

scrapes his chair.

You don’t look at him

but the chair where

the dead kid sat.

 

The Beautiful Smoker

 

She dismissed the cigarette butt

with a flick of her fingers,

and it flew five feet or more

before landing on the sidewalk,

dying with a dim glow

and a puff of white.

 

For a moment,

I forgot all about cancer

and nicotine patches

and emphysema

and endless coughing fits

and every association

between cigarettes

and diseases or death.

 

I was even willing

to be disposed of

so emphatically

just so I could burn

and smoke

in her lips and lungs  

and nostrils

for as long as the fire

held out.

 

Instead, I merely muttered

something like,

“You know cigarettes

can kill you.”

 

She sneered in my direction.

For a moment there,

I was the more toxic alternative.

 

Necessary Steps

 

She waited,

marked time

while the man she married

was in the ascendency

and not the man she feared.

 

No way

she could chop away

his warm touch

at the wrist

or jerk out

a kindly-worded tongue

with pliers.

She would save her arsenal

for when he richly deserved it.

 

And those soft blue eyes.

How could they ever be

a target for her crossbow?

Or the firm chin.

Destroying it

would be like taking an axe

to a Michelangelo.

 

So she decided that

if he ever hit her again,

she’d just leave him.

If apologies tried to stop her,

she would shoot her way out.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, and has recently been published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. His latest book, Leaves On Pages is now available on Amazon.