Tag: breaking up

WHIPPOORWILL

I hear 

a whippoorwill’s
bodiless
chirp

dusk’s 
inimitable mating call –

the bird world
opens a window

but doesn’t turn
a light on

DESERT MORNING

the sun of old
reveals an empty landscape

shines on every cliff-face
the prospect of heaven

steamrolls with light
the thick, hardened clay

wakes the stones
to another blind day

CROPS

black earth
can only bury
for so long
a seed’s
steel boldness

FIRE ON FIRST STREET

A house burns.
Throngs of flame 
overwhelm firemen’s hoses.
The family is safe,
look up in horror 
from the opposite side of the street.
In one collective searing raspberry,
a great red tongue
pokes and pffts 
through every window.

AFTER THE BREAKUP

like salmon 
swimming upstream

you too return
to your birthplace

flop on your old bed

and die a little

MEDALS

Survived a helicopter crash,
was shot three times
and badly wounded 
from a roadside bomb explosion,
of his chest full of medals,
his very favorite was his chest.

TAKE PLEASURE

Through my window,
I spy a sky worth waking to,
the blue of Dutch pottery,
and thin strips of cloud.

No tenements.
No factories.
No smoke-stacks.
No traffic.

Looking up
gets me out of the city.

POST-DIVORCE

the hands drifted apart

and the hearts
were now for everyone else

yet remained unwanted

in the lonely years to come

~~~

John Grey is an Australian poet, a US resident, and has recently published in New World Writing, River And South, and The Alembic. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters,” and “Between Two Fires,” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review, and Cantos. John has been with The Short of It since its very first feature, and received a Push Cart Nomination from TSI for his 2024 piece – Handoff.

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