FREE VERSE POETRY​

JOHN GREY
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2 POEMS

​SHE KEEPS COMING BACK FOR MORE

One more Madonna
cast into fire
and her ashes spat upon –
or maybe it’s just the best part of a paycheck
dedicated to the demon rum –
no, this time,
she’s merely broken,
snapped like a plank of wood
from a karate chop –
he and his buddies
aren’t in the crowd to witness this –
just a child or two are there –
she’s been strangled by a shopping list,
singed by iron and stove,
suffocated in a bedroom dust-storm,
flailed by a rake,
beheaded by an axe –
even the dog saw that last one
and the neighbors witnessed
an ear sliced, an eye poked out.
a hand amputated –
he missed all that –
or he’s forgotten that it even happened –
he’s the breadwinner in the family –
that defect in his memory
is such a provider.

SAY GOODBYE TO THE TREE

My thought is that
my neighbor didn’t like its green beliefs.
Or maybe the shade it cast was too black.
Or, being a maple, he figured its roots
must extend up to Canada,
and he didn’t trust foreigners,
especially underground.
Or the riot of leaves it shed in the fall
reminded him of people in the street
demanding some kind of justice or other.
Or could be its trunk was just too thick,
so much thicker than his scrawny frame.
And it spread its branches wide
while his reach never extended beyond
his way of thinking.
Or it might have been the birds it attracted,
the kind that near-drowned out
the talk radio he listened to faithfully.
Anyhow, whatever the reason,
that tree came down.
It cost him a bundle to have it done.
But what’s politics without money.

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John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Washington Square Review and Floyd County Moonshine. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Rathalla Review and Open Ceilings.