THE UP AND THE DOWN COUP DEAR AMERICAN GOTHIC

THE UP AND THE DOWN

JOHN GREY

The morning’s broad and yellow, enough fluttering grass for ten thousand ankles, and with a trail that leads to a lake as blue as its patron sky.

I climb the hill to shrink the valley below, turn houses to dots, and then loses below all together as trees close in from all sides.

I feel ten years’ old though I’m much older, but I drop the purpose of the day so I may fritter away my time, by the trickle of a stream, up a tamable cliff, in the presence of a wild turkey that stares at me as if it can’t believe I didn’t fly up here.

But then it’s time to leave. Hunger creeps in. I’m not quite the Daniel Boone who can live off the fruit of the forest. Civilization opens back up to the growl of my stomach.

There’s the town. And the dilapidated houses. The sagging fences. The beat-up cars. Nothing that says much for humanity. But the table is laid. I’ve tasted the best of what the woods have to offer. However, nourishment comes in all kinds.

COUP

JOHN GREY

High on a mountain meadow, a humpback bear rose from sunny afternoon slumber.

Its large head made a full circle of the surrounds it commanded by size and ferocity.

It began to move on, slowly at first, but deftly down an ice-carved depression.

Then its strides lengthened. Muscles rippled under frost-tipped fur, as it propelled itself forward on long, sharp claws.

It wasn’t bearing down on prey. No, it was fleeing, heading for the distant thick clump of alpine fur.

It had spotted two humans high on a ridge.

Its life was now discretion. Its protocol was change.

Patrick Guenette

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Dalhousie Review, Thin Air, and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in Qwerty, Chronogram, and failbetter.

DEAR AMERICAN GOTHIC

JOHN GREY

How does it feel to be so iconic? Have you seen the parodies, everything from Mad Magazine, Rocky Horror, to the White Stripes?

And you, stoic farmer, do you ever get the urge to grab that pitchfork and jam it in the face of every tourist ambling through the gallery? Or, knowing what you know now, would Wood have been your victim number one?

And are you aware how time's moved on? That house behind you was blown down years ago. The family farm, you proclaim so doggedly, with your mid-western stare, is as extinct as the passenger pigeon.

These days, you stand for nothing but the easy artistic joke, the tawdry slanders that have you as buffoons.

Of course, the irony is, you, drab-faced man, in blue overalls and dark black jacket, you 're no farmer, but a dentist. And you, Iowa woman, with your narrow, unseasoned lips, and hair pressed tight against your head, you're no farmer's wife but the artist's sister.

For all your imitators, you're the original imitation. You're the joke on us. You're the past putting one over on the future. So hold onto that pose. It’s what we’ve come to expect.