POETRY BY JOHN GREY

John Grey is an Australian poet, American resident, who has recently been published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and the Round Table. Latest books include, “Leaves on Pages” and “Memory Outside The Head,” both available through Amazon.

AT SUNSET IN THE FISHING VILLAGE

Fog comes in like a silent trolley
picking up passengers
from deep, darkening ocean.
Fog is a damp embrace
of gray unsettled faces,
cheeks and noses dripping,
mouths like deep incisions.
Fog is a reminder to those on the shore
of what it is like to be eaten by sharks
in chilling unforgiving waters.
Folks say the fog is just a low-lying cloud.
With limbs deep-scarred, torsos ruptured, 
eyes salt-ravaged,
that's not how the dead see it.

FROM YOUR LOVER, THE METAPHYSICIAN

Our two-way transfiguration
is the product of abstract acuities

metaphysics if you will,
the behind the scenes
puppet master
of reality’s essential narrative

which makes love
the metamorphosis
of the sensate aspects
of two people
into a spiritual oneness.

What I’m really saying
is that, if I were you,
I’d get out while you can.

AN ENCOUNTER WITH A COBRA

I’m hypnotized by the cobra’s eyes
as, hood spread wide,
it sways on invisible strings
to the plaintive command
of eerie flute music

My body is lulled.
What should be fear
is fascination.
No tension 
in my nerves, my heart.
Merely mesmerism.

The snake could strike
at any moment
and I would be complicit
in its fangs.
It could riddle my bloodstream
with toxins
and I’d welcome the invasion.

As with the whip, the woman,
and the wailing witch,
the pain can’t come soon enough.