| SPECTACLE by John Grey YOU WANT ME TO COME HOMESure I miss the snow. That sunlight twinkle. The purity. The fineness.And this steamy heat is like a python squeeze at times. I laze about Get nothing done. It’s weather for the uninspired.But I remember all that shoveling, the effort it took to dig myself out, to live. And the icy surfaces. The paths here may be overgrown from time to time but they’re always walkable.Nothing quite like sitting before the hearth on a bitter day of course. The local equivalent is sitting out on the veranda between the sun going down and mosquito squadrons taking off from swamps.I’ve swapped cabin fever for snakes, numb fingers for sweaty underarms, blizzards for hurricanes, and you for the ones I’ve gotten to know down here.Isn’t everything in life a tradeoff? Besides, I have to be somewhere. Is it my fault that everywhere else won’t hear of it? SPECTACLEDawn, clouds break, new light nudges aside leftover darkness.Crowds already gather. in the town square. You trudge slowly toward the waiting gibbet, guards on either side. A figure in a black mask awaits.It’s time to ride the horse foaled by an acorn, to ascend the nevergreen that bears fruit all year round.Knot is checked. Trapdoor likewise. Hempen fever is in the air. Time for you to waltz on nothing’s dancefloor, to loll your tongue for all to see. The rabble is here for a show. So die quick, die brave, be entertaining. DUCK EGGSOddities cry out to our cameras, as like all good tourists we stop to admire the pyramids of duck eggs. This, at home, would be passed by in an instant but, at this height, with more mountains beyond us, and the wild music of the land piping into us from all directions, cowbells and church bells ringing in harmony, and the flowers in full bloom and under our noses, and the men and women in native dress, dancing and singing when they’re not selling, and everything smelling of cedar and cheese and cattle hides – this is local color. And local color is a stop sign. It comes down from the houses on the hillsides to greet us. It’s foreign, It offers a view of something other than ourselves, with a goat thrown in for good measure, plus cooking, alien to our nostrils, but not to the quail sizzling on the grill. The air is thin. The sun merely mimics the sun we know. But we’re surrounded by ceremonies, can’t stop pointing out another ritual and snapping it prisoner into our digital memories. We need proof that we have been here. Duck eggs and the cry of a vendor – no way they don’t come home with us. About the Author:John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Fall/Lines, the Coe Review and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Cape Rock, Poetry East and Midwest Quarterly. |