Poems
by John Grey
My Conveyance
The tires are low
but who has time to pump them up.
And the tread on the back driver's side
is wearing thin
but it'll last for what I need to do today.
The engine protests with every mile.
Needs an oil change,
new belts, a carburetor with less
of an attitude.
And the battery's no prize.
I turn the key ten times
before it kicks in.
But I'll take what I have.
It's only today after all.
No one's promised me tomorrow
so why prepare for it.
So I stall out at the light on Cunningham.
And the brakes give me that uneasy feeling
that any squeeze of foot on metal
could be their last.
But how many times does a man
need to stop this day.
As long as those brakes and I
are agreed on the number
then they can go on squealing
like an eagle's talons down a blackboard.
I've enough car
for enough time,
enough gas,
enough body and mind
to move this clunky heap of metal
from where I am
to where it needs to go.
I am, after all, this moment,
not the next,
this breath,
not twenty breaths from now.
The car is my awareness,
my identity.
It can always get me where I am,
no problem.
I See The Kid Arrested
I'm wondering
what he did,
what I did,
what we all did.
And who are those guys
snapping the cuffs on
the wrists
of that scared kid,
on my wrist,
on all wrists,
He's being led away
and I've no clue
where he's going,
where I'm going,
where all of us are going.
But soon he's in
the cop car
and gone
and I'm still here.
He gets what
he has coming to him.
It's no longer
coming through me.
Sites
We drive by the site of the murder.
No body, no blood-stain,
no cop car with whirring siren,
no ghoulish bystanders.
But there's no people either.
Not a soul in sight.
It's just this brick wall
with faded election poster,
a sidewalk with weeds poking
through the cracks.
I stop the car, get out.
You stay behind.
I am exactly where the victim was.
You could be as close
as the killer.
We're at the site of a murder
and it feels as if
I'm the first since then
to stand here and wonder,
what if it happens to me.
And who but you,
from such close range,
could ask yourself
what if he's the one
I do it to.
It's not even a murder by this.
H could be love
for all we know.
It could be whatever
we feel or fear
could happen with another.
No violence, no death,
no arrest, no execution.
But we leave the site of that murder
like it's the crime-scene
of something in our lives.
Photograph Of A Beach Bum
No reason to smile apparently,
despite the comfortable beach chair,
the umbrella, scattered petals
of sun and shadow all over
the face and bare torso.
The warm isnt happiness enough.
The gifts of clean sea air
and sand twinkling his toes
just cant move that mouth
in the direction of joy.
When I was his age,
a day by the shore
was like a breakout
from the jobs jail,
a blessed hideout
from other peoples expectations.
But wait,
this is a picture of me.
Im not just lolling about
in the gorgeous weather.
Im not enjoying myself.
And Im busy doing whatever
should anyone be looking for me
in 1987.
Man In A Gray Suit
Yes, I wore the suit,
the tie,
and crossed the threshold
from real life
into corporate.
I made believe
that a flow chart
mattered more than any lifeline,
and a sign on the wall
that read Teamwork
was ten thousand times superior
to Catcher In The Rye.
For the bottom line was
that I had to make a living.
Though, to my bosses,
the bottom line
was the bottom line.
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