Poetry: Selections From John Grey
Fault Lines
On the
night club dance floor,
circling
light fell on the beautiful woman.
While
other guys reveled in
the
flowing brown hair,
low cut
dress and slender legs,
I observed
the slight limp
and the
scar above the eye.
I knew
that I could never be content
with a
form that fitted its garb
so
tightly, so enticingly.
And the
swishing tresses
were
discouraging.
So was
that fine detail
of knee
and ankle
and
everything between.
But a limp
I could support.
A scar
would warrant my attention.
I steer
clear of where loveliness asserts itself.
Yet, I’m
drawn to where it needs my help.
The
Spell of Rumors
Rumor had
it that the rooms above
the local
smoke shop
were a
whorehouse.
And that
the old purple-haired woman
I saw
always going in and out of that side door
was the
madam.
I didn’t
know what whores did
but I
heard my parents’ whispers.
It sounded
bad.
And a
place set aside for the doing of
whatever
it was whores did
had to be
even worse.
And I had
been taught that
“madam”
was a polite word
but,
apparently, when spoken in
a certain
sneering snarky voice
it was
something else entirely.
Looking
back, I never noticed
anyone
else using that door.
No whores,
unless they lived their
entire
lives indoors.
No johns
either.
And a lack
of customers, I learned
later in
life, would spell doom
to any
God-fearing brothel.
But I had
an affinity in those days
for
thinking the worst of people
I didn’t
know.
Chance
utterings gifted me
the
purple-haired woman.
As I grew
older,
she turned
into the widow
in the
cheap flat
living off
a small pension.
Only the
purple hair carried over.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US
resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Willow Review and
White Wall Review. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and
“Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the MacGuffin,
Touchstone and Willow Review.