The Briefest of Relationships and Other Poems

By John Grey The Briefest of Relationships Traffic crawled, head-lamps swam in exhaust cloud for block after interminable block. The road itself idled. Six hundred cars followed suit. The driver ahead of me crawled to a stop. My foot pressed down hard on the much-reviled brake. She leaned out of the window. Featureless back of …

The Toyota Concert and Other Poems

By John Grey The Toyota Concert I admit it. I sing loudly  all the way home. Beatle hits from my youth. Standards from Broadway shows. Anything  from the great mind morass, that never has to wonder why this tune, why now,   as I pull over to the exit  lane and the other cars  zip by …

Where the Water Falls and Other Poems

By John Grey Where the Water Falls It cascades silver and foam from craggy heights down the rutted black face of sheer cliff. On contact with the river, in endless hiss, it replaces itself with more of itself. It cannot tie a shoelace, row a boat or boil a kettle. It merely does what I …

Poems by John Grey

I’LL WRITE MINE, YOU WRITE YOURS   I was barely born when I was suddenly the man of the house. My father died. I wept of course but only because I was hungry.   I should have grown up fast but I didn’t. My mother and my three older sisters saw to that.   Without …

Poems by John Grey

MORNING AT THE COTTAGE A gift from night chill, from the dry wind grace, from the incomparable red-rimmed morning sunlight in a slow spread everywhere... deep the earth becomes, endless mystic fervor; feel the freshened wind through oak's forked bough, fragrance of honey from each old hollow. Shadows spread far, strike the nostrils in a …

Poems by John Grey

GUITAR   The oldest, dearest friend I have and yet there's never been a poem about you, my precious guitar of steel on spruce and melancholy sweet tone.   I rest you on my lap so you can play for me, touch your frets, your strings lightly like tapping in a combination number that will …

Poems by John Grey

SPLENDOR, THE NATURAL VARIETY   I'm enamored of splendor. Especially the natural variety. Like this lake smooth as glass but for the ripple of a loon passing. And mountains, though I've no wish to climb them, make a perfect backdrop. As do the deer nibbling at the forest edge. My current mood is rare but …

“ON A FISHING TRIP”

By John Grey   Breezes rock the boat like the sea-mother's arms. Lines struggle to stretch out on all sides of the deck. They bounce on the waves, far from any fish. But the gulls, at least, are confident in our skills. They hover over the boat in expectation of at least one of us …

“AVOIDANCE”

By John Grey It's possible that, even now. you had nothing left to say. that I was wasting my time by pressing my finger to my lips or covering my ears with my hands. Could be that, as I rushed from the room, slammed the door, that I was leaving behind silence, that the drive …

“A LOVER OF ASTRONAUTS”

By John Grey Until now, she's only loved astronauts and, as I stare into her dark eyes, a jet stream of disappointment streaks behind her. She's listening for that countdown in my groping embarrassed silence, the explosion of takeoff in nervous, ground-hugging words. Here I am at the end of a long line of adventure …