John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and the Round Table. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon.

A MOTHER LOOKS IN

The storms flash silver swords.
The moon makes faces.
The clock moves from ear to ear,
to cheek, to chin, and back again.
The storybook has fallen to the floor
but the stories continue.
The dragon is slain
The ogre driven back into the deep woods.
Anything is possible.
Wallpaper winks and blinks and nods.
The ceiling’s blank 
until the schooner sails across
its shadowy waters.
His mother looks in
through a crack in the door.
There’s adventures in the sliver of light,
the shine beyond..
They just haven’t happened yet.

LOST IN THE WOODS

There are kids lost in the woods.
Rescue teams are out looking.
So far, no luck.
Maybe those kids don’t want to be found.

For the woods aren’t that large, that dense.
You can see the roadway from just about anywhere.
There are no ditches to fall into.
No caves. And no dangerous animals.

Kids gets lost in the woods all the time.
But in their heads, where the trees
go for miles, the foliage is dense, 
and big cats roam, giant snakes slither.

So maybe the best place to search 
is up in their rooms, in the backyard.
But rescue teams are on alert for cries of help.
They should be listening for laughter. 

CAUGHT IN THE RAIN

In this constant rain,
you are at your most vulnerable.

The weather sharpens its knives,
stabs away 
with blind fear and anger.

Water plunges its blades,
splashes your body
with cold, clear, bloodless blood.

You see a light, distant and blurry.
But, I warn you, don’t go in that direction.

For all this imagined butchery,
there lives a man who does rainfall for real.