John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.

GOOD DAY

I’m a poet

and it’s been a good day.

Not great 

but good.

And not good enough

to compensate completely

for all the bad days

that preceded it.

And not good enough 

to make a dent 

in the pessimism, 

the misery,

that has defined me

over the years,

that infuses my poetry

with an invidious vein

of melancholia.

It’s been such a good day

that it raised a smile. 

But it cost me a poem

in the short term.

REINCARNATION, SPIDER-STYLE

Maybe I’ll come back as a tiny spider,

skittering up walls, 

and with just enough stick to my toes

so I can roam the ceiling and look down.



I’m weary of occupying all this space,

of having legs, hips, torso 

and a recognizable face.

People know who I am

so they accost me about something.

They know what I’ve got 

and they want it for themselves.



Sure, a spider’s only in it for itself,

and lays traps, kills, but only from instinct,

no guilt, no culpability,

and it doesn’t have to answer to other spiders,

or be responsible for an ungrateful tribe  

of eight-legged offspring. 



And, from my new vantage point,

I could look down at the ones 

who are suffering like I did,

burdened and beset, 

wanting out but too visible, too flatfooted,

too much a part of who and where they are

to make a getaway.



I could keep watch as they sleep,

observe their crunched-up weary human bodies,

spin my seductive gossamer web their way.

FAMILY HOUSE FOR SALE

Every room is empty

but for the people roaming through.

No one speaks up, says, “This is 1970.”

They just mutter among themselves

as to whether they can afford the house.



Sunlight reveals old pencil marks on a wall,

cigarette burns on the carpet,

a gouge in the linoleum where stove meets floor,

but no one fesses up to being responsible.



No one cares for all that’s happened

to my mother, my sisters, and myself.

They are only here to begin.