GET THE MESSAGE
thank you kindly
breathe
clear throat
clear the room
meanwhile
double-check for lower case
and how many miles it’s been
you have a minute
yes I’m crazy I tell you
no corresponding mouth fit your lips
no bucket into which to pour your soul
just the sad fact of melted soap
dead goldfish
sorry future
uninvited guests
a dark, forbidding howling cloud
a scratch that could turn into something much worse
a woman's voice
in my head at all times
claiming we were something back
when we were nothing,
always wandering here and then
always wondering if and when
and always these unexpected words
flocking from my throat
like bats out of a dark cave
mouths fanged, wings of leather
hungry for blood
just I claim to have a heart.
and just when you think it might
embrace what you are offering
it’s Thursday already –
the beginning of my
forty days and forty nights
decamp to the desert
all that darkness
all that dry
all that worry that I won’t come back alive –
do you want that
a love affair anointed with m starvation -
still discovered.
contentment that
a connection was made
beasts with voice.
sufficiently known to each other
blowing steam they didn’t know
they had
feelings bright as peacock feathers
throbbing with ideas
checking out the mirror image
chewing the cud of romance
circling, closing and opening,
countless days of brief illumination tamped by ordinary lives
like cows on the road
crossing the light of oncoming traffic
dear whoever you are,
you are my rosebush,
my Columbian coffee
my drift from time to time
you even taught me how to move
I bought you the necklace that bit you
I gave you the book
that I had to explain
and I apologized no matter the price
repeated what doesn’t bear repeating
doubled down
when you draped your leg over mine
pushed your electric buttons
but not enough to make a life
to hurt and kill
to feel remorse
just feathers
fecund dance,
the gifts you bring from one moment to the next,
dead goldfish weeping
graft me with your greenery
grow depths in the darkness
guilty as bones
try and fail
hollow out the moon
arguing for the losers
make a case for them all.
I know I have
with a capital L for idea
But really
relationships are as pointless as arguments
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Floyd County Moonshine. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.