Two Poems by John Grey

by John Grey

One Day, Not Feeling Well

I memorized the insides of public restrooms –

every word scribbled on the walls.

And snow fell on a hell of my own making.

Morning believed in God,

but then the coffee was drunk,

the dice were rolled,

and a solitary man still couldn’t

work up the strength

to open the letter on the kitchen table.

The doctor did his best to corelate my sickness

with living in a place like Baltimore.

They found a spot.

On Jupiter, I asked.

But no, it’s on me.

There goes his “200 days without an accident” sign.

I’ve come to understand

why cows are rounded up,

how legalized pot is the last weird thing

this brain will have to digest.

It’s not fatal, he added.

You’ll just disappear for a few days.

He suggested I write it all down.

And then someday,

bored out of my skull,

I can read it back to me.

This is the bullshit I go through.

And on a day just like this one.

The Lake Intervenes

We no longer take up cudgels.

Instead, we relax in folding chairs

at opposite sides of a lake.

No more dictatorship versus ingratitude

over endless rounds

in rooms too small to breathe

but merely two people

comfortable in their own furniture,

soaking up the sun while gentle waves

play hide-and-seek inside our toes.

What comes between us

is now flat and calm

and borrows the sky's blue

or black depending on its mood.

Sometimes fish burst

through its surface.

Sometimes, deer emerge

in the cover of their own shadows,

to sip at it.

I've even seen

a brief whirlwind at its core

send ever wider and wider circles

out toward the bank.

They break up

before they reach us.

That’s something

hard words never did.