John Grey

Two Places at Once

A man can be where he is and where he is not.

A magician is pulling a rabbit out of his hat while that same rabbit merrily munches a carrot in its cage,

Traffic outside, every car home in its garage.

Boy holding hands, with the freckled girl, with his GI Joe.

I kiss you on the lips the same moment I kiss my grandmother on the cheek.

People of the inner city, do you hear the wolf howl as I do? Creatures of the deep woods, sorry if the cries of starving children disturb you,

A man is silent with himself while talking to his neighbors. He’s regretting what he’s done though he hasn’t done it yet.

Today is at least one other day, maybe two. Tomorrow for example. And the day after. You can even throw in yesterday.

John Grey

Crossroads

She said she was from all over. I was from one place.

And she’d had all kinds of jobs from waitress to cleaning motel rooms. I’d been at a desk, in a cubicle, all my working years.

So she was ready to settle down in the one location, at the one task. While I had this great urge to be on the move, do many different things.

So we met momentarily in a bar, both about to live the life the other had been living.

We never saw each other again. Except in the mirror that is.

John Grey

January Love

I’m sorry he died when the weather was bad. Who wants to stand out in a cemetery in sleet and snow where temperature is the mad king and all of his minions are frozen and irrelevant. And yet my mother is angry that the funeral is so poorly attended. This is the bitter cold of January. The geese are still around. I can see their shadows swoop through mine. The marsh is clouded up like my mind when I try to think too deeply, as if my opinion could possibly mean anything And these are days of ice-locked land in all directions, coated with light that can go no deeper. There’s a dead a man in the ground and, in the cold and stillness of my blood, my future is simple— I am no longer a father’ s son. The winter gives pause, makes me doubt the ability of vegetation to renew. I have seen what bitterness does to people My mother’s eyes are still capable of welling up. But that’s for what has been, not for how things are now. I am witnessing the beginning of widowhood. It parallels the month in so many ways. The geese don’t migrate. They hang around. They’ve figured out how to live with the worst. They feed and drink where they can. My mother even tosses bread to them. Not good for their bodies, so I’ve heard, but wonderful for their souls.

John Grey