The Sleep Untold, etc.
By
John Grey
THE SLEEP UNTOLD
The full moon of winter
settles in my sleeping brain
like liquid light,
thought marshes,
rippled by ghost fingers
and a quivering undertow.
Dreams step lightly,
fearful of drowning.
Their reflection peers up at them,
delicate, fragile.
There’s a woman in swimming.
And a boy with a kite.
A little girl stabs her finger
on a rose thorn.
Her blood tears float.
I sense the splash.
I’m airborne on a string.
I sting.
These get me through the night.
I couldn’t ask for more.
SPRING IN OUR TOWN
Spring,
thawed bodies,
red efts crawling toward water,
scattered blood-stained weapons,
snake sunning on a log,
someone floating head-down in a pond,
birds boisterous,
cemetery splattered
with swastikas on every tombstone,
kids racing through the park,
guy hung from a high branch of an elm,
lovers sniffing the first bloom,
killers reconnoitering their next victim,
ducks trailed by tiny yellow-downed offspring,
man stumbling from the bushes with a knife in his back,
much laughter, some screams,
many weddings, smiling brides and grooms,
lots of funerals but few open caskets.
AT A FAMILY GET TOGETHER
I join the gathering
as night falls,
mingle like a fruit bat
in a cherry orchard.
A great-great-great nephew
is curious about my life style.
I explain how blood-sucking
isn’t what it used to be.
Young virgins are in short supply.
In response to my entrenched state of poverty,
my third cousin, ten times removed,
says there’s an opening at his firm.
I tell him that I can’t possibly work days.
Besides, I’m a hundred and fifty years
past retirement age.
All of my great-great-great nieces
find me something of a novelty.
They introduce me to their friends
as part of the family’s European line,
a dissolute count with a crumbling castle.
One distant relative has my looks
though not my appetites.
Aunt Gertrude, the family matriarch,
keeps insisting I need to have my teeth seen to.
A glowing new mother
parades her ten-week-old.
Just like me,
he has all his life ahead of him.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, Writer’s Block and Trampoline.
By
John Grey
THE SLEEP UNTOLD
The full moon of winter
settles in my sleeping brain
like liquid light,
thought marshes,
rippled by ghost fingers
and a quivering undertow.
Dreams step lightly,
fearful of drowning.
Their reflection peers up at them,
delicate, fragile.
There’s a woman in swimming.
And a boy with a kite.
A little girl stabs her finger
on a rose thorn.
Her blood tears float.
I sense the splash.
I’m airborne on a string.
I sting.
These get me through the night.
I couldn’t ask for more.
SPRING IN OUR TOWN
Spring,
thawed bodies,
red efts crawling toward water,
scattered blood-stained weapons,
snake sunning on a log,
someone floating head-down in a pond,
birds boisterous,
cemetery splattered
with swastikas on every tombstone,
kids racing through the park,
guy hung from a high branch of an elm,
lovers sniffing the first bloom,
killers reconnoitering their next victim,
ducks trailed by tiny yellow-downed offspring,
man stumbling from the bushes with a knife in his back,
much laughter, some screams,
many weddings, smiling brides and grooms,
lots of funerals but few open caskets.
AT A FAMILY GET TOGETHER
I join the gathering
as night falls,
mingle like a fruit bat
in a cherry orchard.
A great-great-great nephew
is curious about my life style.
I explain how blood-sucking
isn’t what it used to be.
Young virgins are in short supply.
In response to my entrenched state of poverty,
my third cousin, ten times removed,
says there’s an opening at his firm.
I tell him that I can’t possibly work days.
Besides, I’m a hundred and fifty years
past retirement age.
All of my great-great-great nieces
find me something of a novelty.
They introduce me to their friends
as part of the family’s European line,
a dissolute count with a crumbling castle.
One distant relative has my looks
though not my appetites.
Aunt Gertrude, the family matriarch,
keeps insisting I need to have my teeth seen to.
A glowing new mother
parades her ten-week-old.
Just like me,
he has all his life ahead of him.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, Writer’s Block and Trampoline.
