Her Plauge
On my sister’s outback sheep station, locusts are unnecessary.
Drought comes with more buzz and carapace and feeler
than any Biblical plague.
Nothing’s devoured as thoroughly as grass that never grew.
Her kids envy those who can rush out into the fields
and, without even trying, trap an insect in ajar.
Horizon, sky, and hard red earth have got the dry heat
snared already thank you very much.
They don’t want children staring down through pin-pricked lids.
It’s rain that all the tubs and tanks and plots of earth are set for.
Now that’s the real trick. Grab some moisture. Squeeze it in your palm.
See the wings fall off, the head crumple, legs snap in two.
Or keep it living under glass, rolling around, fluttering, twitching.
Brown bush. Bare earth. Dead ewes and rams.
On my sister’s outback sheep station,
God was vengeful the moment He was God.
Historian
Not a city but an ancient relic,
I’m amazed how people, in their
business fluidity, misread this place
they live and work in, ignore the
walled-in column, the inscription,
too hungry, too absorbed, or even
just too stuck in neutral for the
fragments of yesterday, the history,
the extraordinary lives just inches from
their well-worn paths.
Look who’s buried in your graveyards.
See who pummeled stone on this old
workbench, who roared liberty to the
rafters of this ancient church while
soldiers muscled in from all directions.
The man in business suit thinks himself
as much too rare for this.
The girl with spiked hair, nose ring,
believes the world began with her existence,
Meanwhile, I read the plaque on an old building,
gift my eyes, my heart, my head,
to what happened here two hundred years before.
If I don’t do this,
the past has no future.
After The Hike
Shoes come off slowly,
as if feeling sorry
for my sore, humiliated feet.
Socks peel away
like the second skin
they’ve truly become.
Some hitchhikers fall out,
pebbles, grains of sand.
And then I’m down to
swollen ankles,
aching arches,
toes squeezed together,
refusing to release.
I’ve barely courage enough
to examine the blistered, bleeding soles.
If feet were Sons,
we wouldn’t be on speaking terms.
But they’re extremities.
Nothing of my body
is farther from my brain
and still they report up to it.
It’s been twenty miles
of uneven, rocky, hilly terrain
and the news is not good.
Your Need To Not Know
Dear N, you wouldn’t believe the size, the color,
the shape of the opals they dig out of the desert here.
Like you wouldn’t believe how tall the skyscrapers
are in New York or how wide the Amazon river is
in parts or how deep the Grand Canyon.
So why do I bother trying to compare opals
with whatever it is that’s perfect in your life
when you won’t allow these gems of mine
to diminish what you have, not for one moment.
“Mona Lisa” couldn’t drop your value nor castles
compromise your home. Not even hearing
opera at La Scala could shift your certainties
an octave. and bullet trains can go a million
miles an hour for all your conviction that
there’s no place you need to go.
Dear N, some old prospector showed me
an opal today that dazzled my eyes though
I know your eyes don’t dazzle. He told me how
much he could get for it. A small fortune
in my dollars. Chump change in your skin.
And he says there’s plenty more where
that came from. But then again, nothing
comes from anywhere. Wherever you put it,
there it is.
Australian born poet, John Grey, works as financial systems analyst. Recently published in Poem, Caveat Lector, Prism International and the horror anthology,”What Fears Become” with work upcoming in Big Muddy, Prism International and Pinyon.
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