Poems by John Grey

Composed

I write of your elegance but with words that groan.
It’s done. The storm penetrates your skin.
It’s done. What is happening? Contemplate your face:
I set you on the horns of a raging bull
and I render a mournful wind through your brows
and affection, wet through with tears of whiter
because you have lived that season
and now you will be dead forever,
because you have lived forever.
now no one will peer into your eyes
death has clothed you in pale yellow
so true – so stale with lost adventure,
air, as if insulted, abandons your sunken chest
the baby and the dusk do not know you
from a heap of dead mutts,
of all the dead of the world
of all the dead who are beyond our touching,
can’t feel the searing tears,
the horse does not know you, nor the oak,
nor the black coffin in which you fold
nor the horses, nor the termites in your home,
your own remembering does not know you
nor the grapes on the hills.
No one remembers you. But I write of you.
The spring will arrive with small green buds,
ivy on walls, herd in the field.
We are here with a body laid in weakness.
What is the mood here? A putrid silence settles down
in rows of clattering chairs.

John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in The Lyric, Vallum and the science fiction anthology, “The Kennedy Curse” with work upcoming in Bryant Literary Magazine, Natural Bridge, Southern California Review and the Pedestal.