John Grey- Two Poems

THE DRIVER HAS A SON

In the car,

I still suffer from weight and pressure

but at least I can steer them

or, on long stretches of straight highway,

feel what unleashed speed

does to their measures.

Maybe you were even conceived in a car,

on the scratchy back seat,

with your mother giggling and grunting,

and me like an exhaust pipe

smacking along the asphalt,

noisy and sparking.

You could, even be a half-orphan,

thanks to the car.

I could have enclosed myself in the garage,

turned on the ignition,

and left our relationship from there.

And though you weren’t born in the car

it was close run thing,

a mad dash to the hospital

on a rainy, skidding night.

In the car,

the brake and the accelerator

are as close as your mother and I once were.

My feet seem to know that

even if my head forgets.

Seems like every time I drive somewhere,

I see an accident,

crumpled metal, broken glass,

a body on the road.

Sometimes, I wait and see

just who the sirens come for.

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

The horror of being close. Breath comes back to my 

lungs trembling. Is she the one I’m left with

after all the soldiers lie dead in fields?

Prefer the rose and daffodil making a point for me

through dusk’s shadowed face. Am I? Should I?

My flesh is being held for ransom. My faith

has melted into globules of spit.

Smell and taste and touch and. . . .what’s the deal?

Is landscape dead? Cattle country,

western desert, was it all a prison to begin with?

Dusk’s shadowed face. Noon’s forgetfulness.

Morning’s diffidence. Meanwhile, lips

terrify me into submission. Hands turn me paralytic.

Her head on my arm, she’s after my pulse.

John Grey is an Australian born poet, works as financial systems analyst. Recently published in Bryant Poetry Review, Tribeca Poetry Review and the horror anthology, “What Fears Become”with work upcoming in Potomac Review, Hurricane Review and Osiris.