VIEWING TASTES
I can tell by your enraptured
face,
that you're buying all this
screen romance.
Don't you realize these so-called
lovers
are being chaperoned by a
heavy-handed director,
a lighting assistant warned to
keep that bright beam
focused on her better
side,
the dialogue coach
straightening out his lumpy
accent.
I much prefer a nature
documentary.
Give me crocodiles over humans
any day.
No stand-ins. No script. No
retakes.
They stalk those ducks for
real.
What do your tastes tell of
you?
No slinking up behind the
unsuspecting.
No panicked flesh in
jaw
slapped and busted on the
water's
flailing surface.
No blood on the
snout
or dribbling down the
teeth.
You call that
kissing.
HOT TUB
We thumb our nose at
weather.
Chilly air's nefarious
plot
to infiltrate
water
blows up in its
face
as steam.
I sink down to the level of
comfort.
Your toes giggle
at the jets below.
Around us,
trees accede to the change of
seasons.
But in the sweltering
tub,
it's nothing
doing.
We surrender no body
heat,
refuse to believe in the
consequence
of the sun going
down.
The oak deck has nothing in
common
with its newly pastel
cousins.
Leaves already
falling
are a mere pastiche
of shed jeans and
t-shirts.
Warm in the
bitterness,
relaxed at such an anxious time
—
we've no clear
line
on what's not
doable.
TONIGHT'S COMPANY
Huge rowdy sailor with no mind of
his own,
a six hour binge,
fleshy red face, boisterous,
loud,
swinging his arms at an imaginary
opponent —
I've my head in my
drink
praying he doesn't notice
me.
A woman on a stool, alone,
pretty,
sipping a mixed
drink
and singing a little
—
we should be eye to
eye
but the big guy's
presence
is like this huge
blockade
that keeps people apart from
their dreams.
So once fertile
ground
is now dark and
hopeless.
He's boasting. He wants to fight
the bartender.
While he downs another
whiskey,
my most subtle eye
is checking out escape
routes
instead of long, slim
legs.
I am stuck in this position for
an hour or more.
He'll come for me. I can never go
to her.
I drink her kisses
but they taste like my
blood.
I sip on her body
but it turns out to be his
fist.
I haven't failed. But nor have I
won.
I’m getting slowly
drunk
on a holding
pattern.
Eventually, the
sailor's
had enough of
himself
and leaves.
The woman's done
with
being alone in
public,
slips away into the
night.
I'm weary of a
world
that takes as it
gives,
sours as it
sweetens.
So it's another of what I'm been
having
bartender please.
John Grey is an Australian born poet.
Recently published in Paterson Literary Review, Southern California Review and
Natural Bridge with work upcoming in the Kerf, Leading Edge and Louisiana
Literature.
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