A STORM OVER FARMLAND

A STORM OVER FARMLAND

In my ears, the bang, the rattle.
In my eyes, the raw snap of lightning.
And, within and without me,
the incessant din of crashing rain.

It’s the price we pay for fertility.
For the land is a woman’s thighs.
And a storm is no prude.
Its thunder drowns out her culpable cries.

From the bedroom, I look out on a bursting sky,
writhing soil, whip-cracking wind.
The tin roof pounds out a million drums rolls.
My body feels drenched in water and blood.

I’ve learned, from an early age,
that weather’s wrath is a farmer’s blessing.
Babies are conceived on nights like this.
Fallow earth is a harvest’s womb.

DAY MEETS MAN

The morning sails between sleeping
and waking. I rub eyes in one dark port,
open them to the bright bay opposite.

Sunrays, split by willow and window-frame,
shake the shoulders of my eyes.

Time to get up, to rejoin mind and body,
to become whole. Feet flat on cold floor,
my arms stretch like wings. My mouth
is as wide as a vacant room.

The clock asks, “What’s your next move?”
It means more than the one my feet take.

THE CROWD SURROUNDS THE BODY FOUND

Once she glowed
on the precocious, prestigious path
to college and a law degree.

Now there is merely deep concern
among her friends and family.

She was the idol.
Now her face is barred
from prying eyes.

Cops say, “Stay back,”
their arms outstretched
to half-block everyone’s gaze.

She’s lifeless,
decomposed.

What were once gifts
are now rumors.

THE ANTI-HALLELUJAH

The preacher says we're headed straight for the swamp.
He equates us to the tiny creatures that buzz on the surface
or the monstrosities that live deep in the brown morass.
But none of them are sinners from what I can make out.
If God blessed them with a blood diet, then they're
not to blame if they seek out skin.
Or if their lungs are designed for breathing murk
and their appetites run the bestial gamut,
then it's not their fault that they slither out of the ooze
from time to time and claim a passing innocent.
I want to scream back at the man that
it's more in the design than the decision
but he's so caught up in his own prolixity
that I doubt he'd even hear.
Besides, what are my reflections on the real world
against his volley of Biblical quotations.
And then there's his conviction.
It was born without ears.
So I'll just keep on believing that people
do the best that they can under the circumstances
they find themselves in
and that it's God's plan that gave us snakes
and not the snake's plan.
On all sides of me, the stirred up flock
deafen the air with cries of "Hallelujah" or "Amen."
My response is a muted "I'll do my best."
Nobody hears it but me.

THIS INEVITABLE PRESENCE

Yes I’ve been seeing things.
Mostly me.
In the mirror.
In the glass door.

I try to look away
but there’s always something
snapping my picture –
a shiny saucepan lid,
a clock face,
a shop window,
even another’s eyes.

Get me out of here
I tell my image
but the damn thing
has me on repeat.

Yes, that’s me
grinning from that coin,
hissing in the steam,
wading in that drop of sweat.

Even if you just
say something,
there I am
looking back at me,
a doppelganger of words.

I’m all too much.
I can’t get away from me.
Even when I’m just thinking,
I’m uppermost in my thoughts.

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.