John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Rathalla Review. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.

GOOD OLD MAIN STREET

He strides down Main Street
and the bustling stores
remind him of shuttered doors
and windows.
Folks buying local
set him thinking
about huge trucks
rolling in at night,
hauling a little bit of everything.

Nothing like a hardware store
that's been in the same family for years
to stimulate a man
into buying up farm tracts cheap,
planting malls in place of all that wheat.

Air-conditioned, city prices,
excellent for shade, food courts and shopping
that's what a bench on a sidewalk
on a sidewalk is telling him
even if the two old men lazing there
know different.

Mom and pop five and dimes
trigger shoe emporiums,
chain clothing stores
and let's not forget those anchors...
and lots of parking of course.

Maybe a children's play area
a gazebo and a fountain—
something it give it all
that Main Street feel.
Yes, that's what a Main Street
inspires in him —
that Main Street feel.

INTO NICARAGUA

We played nice with the officious border guards.
They stamped our passports like driving nails through the paper. 

Villagers paid little attention to us.
We looked as harmless as a light breeze.

We drove up and down hills and around cattle.
When lost, we asked for directions in broken Spanish.

Rations were kept purposely low – rice and beans.
Our stomachs filled up not one bit.

We bathed in the shallows of the rivers,
always with an eye out in case of reptilian company.

We slept in the car with windows rolled down,
just enough so no jaguar could crawl in.

Our imaginations got a workout, as shapes stole 
stealthily through jungle, other eyes shone in the night.

No matter where we were, there was never any emptiness.
Butterflies were like jewels, the heat, a crown of thorns.

I kept a diary. You just wrote things down in your head.
We parted soon after. We never did compare

PREACHER MAN

He was out there on a street corner
testifying from the messy morass of his soul, 
how he’d been gutted by sin for so many years
    	but now he was healing,
and, waving a Bible like a seaman’s semaphore,
he implored the passing traffic to listen to
	and embrace “the Word.”

He always seemed more angry than joyous 
despite his own, as he called it,
	“rebirth in Christ.”
Maybe it was the chilly weather.
Or the fumes from the cars.
Most likely, it was the speed 
with which things moved around him.
Earth has never been fertile territory 
	for an irritated stationary God.