January 21, 2018

The Widower / What's Coming by John Grey

THE WIDOWER

The house is old and rambling.
Rooms beget rooms like facing mirrors.
Only one is occupied.
On the four-poster bed,
body struggles with thought
for the right to the subconscious.

Guilt won't leave well enough alone.
It locks you in a room,
shrieks back the pain
into the heart, the hands,
of their maker.

You crave a sleep, distant in time and place
from the worst of you.
Night is frozen into stillness, quiet,
but for a shiver of curtain, a creeping spider,
the rocking of a pendulum, radiator hiccup,
the creak of footsteps on the attic stairs.







WHAT'S COMING

Such a wind defiler,
a tree killer,
a cracker of the earth
like it's nothing but a walnut -
nothing is sacred.
What is a soul to you
but a spirit to be shredded.

It's cold out.
Dark clouds overlay the air.
Snow falls -
under your instructions no doubt.
I light the fire in my cottage.
Flames commune,
whisper of your coming.

You're as dead as brown grass
but no disguising the murmur.
You're ten thousand times crone-old
but the ache, the infirmity, is all mine.

Who dug you up this time?
Who set you free?
My face is all crusted sores,
nerves jiggle like skeletons,
heart's throb is down to a nibble,
thoughts bow and scrape like a serf.

You don't even have to appear.
Or even exist.
You're on your way
and that's much too much for me.







John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Examined Life Journal, Studio One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Leading Edge, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly.  

No comments:

Post a Comment