By: John Grey
A POLITICIAN ADDRESSES THE REFUGEE SITUATION
Yes, there’s been a conflicting sequence
of statements and instructions
in regard to your leaving Aleppo
for the safety of western Europe
It’s a question of, how shall I put it,
who doesn’t want you the least.
There’s been presented
many alternative solutions
to your current dilemma,
any or all or none
could prove to be the way
to a better life.
Unfortunately, this has
created a kind of labyrinth
which on closer inspection
is merely processes
that join and split apart
in ever confusing directions
until it all seems inextricable.
So sorry, refugee.
You are, at heart, a paradox
and, by your very nature, insoluble.
Press your face against the gates
as you will.
But, from the outside,
you and your fellow travelers
have got me puzzled.
You’re up there with black holes
quarks and the age of the universe
except that you’re down here.
BLACK MAMBA
Seven feet of serpent,
you slither across savanna.
through woods,
flickering your V tongue.
You stalk pigeons at a watering hole,
hyrax in the rocks,
bats snug in their caves
and yes, you’re always on the lookout
for me.
I dread your inky-black mouth,
those glistening fangs,
that narrow neck-flap
and the taunting hiss.
One strike
and lungs collapse,
heart stops,
I’m dead within moments.
Yes, my imagination
makes you into something other
than one more creature
struggling to survive,
to propagate its species.
That you have it in you
to kill a man
is incidental to your purpose.
But I’m more fearful than convinced.
A RUSSIAN MAIL-ORDER BRIDE SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC
That life in the offing
is secretly conflicting mine
now I am bound to you,
a mysterious presence,
just a photograph, a letter,
that still leave me unaware.
A bride to be
in hope of something
brighter than before,
I rise from a dark world
but what if I descend
into something even darker?
I’m trapped in a cheap seat,
skimming through a magazine
that sneers at my poor English,
I know nothing of you,
but am sustained
by knowing nothing of anyone.
Whatever you are,
phantom or vision
the blur of a dream,
your being sustains
the feverish hopelessness
of all I have known until now.
No sign of you below,
just gray cloud cleft by whitecap flares,
the shadow of the airplane
the whole of the ocean.
Is there even a far shore?
Or will I remain aloft forever?
And who am I to be living
in some other country,
with a man who can do
no better than me.
I feel like a thief.
I’m afraid that the houses are empty.
Bio: John Grey
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Orbis, Dalhousie Review and the Round Table.
Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon.
Work upcoming in Lana Turner and Hollins Critic.
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