poems by John Grey

John Grey    

Bio is as follows:

John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in International Poetry Review, Chrysalis and the science fiction anthology, “Futuredaze” with work upcoming in Potomac Review, Sanskrit and Fox Cry Review.

RICH WOMAN IN MIAMI BEACH

a la affection,

amongst the latter-day suitors,

always followed by flowers,

arrive bedchamber

behind which the believed,

beloved, besought,

enter the. big blue room,

window by the bay,

sills copper-casket brown,

like your skin

wrapped round

a face defeated by cameras

eiderdown quilts

fleet and wavering,

having flung your fragrance

for 30 years,

now around your mouth,

another gigolo,

full disclosure

SITES

We drive by the site of the murder.

No body, no blood-stain,

no cop car with whirring siren,

no ghoulish bystanders.

But there's no people either.

Not a soul in sight.

It's just this brick wall

with faded election poster,

a sidewalk with weeds poking

through the cracks.

I stop the car, get out.

You stay behind.

I am exactly where the victim was.

You could be as close

as the killer.

We're at the site of a murder

and it feels as if

I'm the first since then

to stand here and wonder,

what if it happens to me.

And who but you,

from such close range,

could ask yourself

what if he's the one

I do it to.

It's not even a murder by this.

It could be love

for all we know.

It could be whatever

we feel or fear

could happen with another.

No violence, no death,

no arrest, no execution.

But we leave the site of that murder

like it's the site

of something in our lives.

UPBRINGING, THE DOWN SIDE

and you think you dragged

yourself up from nothing

but not like the nothing I'm from

eating out of trashcans

licking the rain off sidewalks

begging all the alley bums

to be my old man

just look at my face

can't you see the fish-heads

the taste of raw cement

the breath the booze

that I am heir to

okay

so I've cleaned myself

up a little since those days

I only eat the best garbage

I only drink the pavement

outside the fanciest addresses

and I even have a kid of my own

the bum

WATCHING THE PITCHER

you're on the mound

you're in command

you're elevated

like your body

is your brain

and they're both pumping

two guys

struck out already

this inning

you're throwing smoke

and the fans are

as rabid as wolves

I'm wishing

I could write poems like that

readers cheering

or tensed up for the next one

suffering soul by Mr. d.j.d.b

On the stairs i wept after the horrific sounds i heard kept me awake so scared and afraid to take a look at the aftermath blood stained carpets hand trail marks  along the hall way walls kitchens a mess the sceans are grotesque wishing i had left you days before my death the penalty for loving you with every breath i could in-hale so tell me how you murdered me now burning the house with our worldly possessions to many lessons from what i didn't learn raised alarms but none triggered a concern i hope in hell for eternity you suffer like i did at the whelms of your hands watching karma's plan knowing soon you will greet your fortune doom so i can be at peace and stop reliving the events that took place in that room...... here is the sort of thing i do 




suffering soul 
by mr d.j.d.b © 



  wondering through a lonly place 
by mr D.J.D.B 
Dazed and confused i wonder through the broken streets after being abused by society  feeling slightly under dressed as i stumble pass the only thing that could fix this mess would i make it in to the light an feel the freshness inhale a clean breath of air instead of this poison aroma that.s sent all the innocent in to comas watching the blind being guided by political corruption hearing no words to end this destruction violated the rights made by our four fathers anti publication is what drove us in to this apocalyptic future no proof of identification losing all form of male population animals present the new earths  creation manifestation i'm lost in this wasteland no sign of any human life so i  guess i'm next faced to re-debt this price borrowed when i jumped off a bridge wishing i never lived to regret the things i once did memories of an evil child growing up in the wild west i beg of you lord please forgive these stupid things i have done i confess it was me feeling numb crying in to the palm of my hands coming to terms while the emptiness burns as i try to withstand and out smart he.s plan but there is nothing more i can do hoping to start something new vanishing of in to the desert blue .......

THE ENGLISH ROSE BY MR D.J.D.B 
In an English country garden grew a wild rose that brought eternal youth word got to the out side world. The villages started to search for proof looking in every crack and cranny lifting rocks and the roof of every shed bringing the aged before the were dead but this rose could only be found by the purest of pure if you should ever touch a leaf she would no for sure who.s good and who.s poisoned to the core . One day a girl so bright was playing in the English garden when she caught sight of the rose under the beauty of the sun her power shows her magic glows the little girl froze as she lent in to pick this rose but was startled as the redness turned black she tried her hardest but the rose wouldn't go back to growing clouds covered the village sky as judgement day was coming thunder rain being forced from the heavens above it was the English rose.s pain as she who came to pick the rose wasn't as pure as every one knows

cheek out the new chapbook by Michael Brownstein, A RENDERING OF TORAH " key"is vintage poetry Favorite piece. 

http://booksonblog35.blogspot.com/

Bio: April Salzano teaches college writing in Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Poetry Salzburg, Pyrokinection, Convergence, Ascent Aspirations, The Rainbow Rose, The Camel Saloon, The Applicant, The Mindful Word, Napalm and Novocain, The Second Hump, and is forthcoming in Jellyfish Whispers, The South Townsville Micro Poetry Journal, andInclement.  She is working on her first collection of poetry and an autobiographical novel on raising a child with Autism.

 

Self Checkout

I can hear the genius at Walmart

corporate headquarters, pitching

his new idea:

Why open more lanes

when we can make the customer

do the job FOR us?

Please place your item

in the bagging area…

Ok, item in bagging area. Ha! I’m

my own cashier! I’m avoiding the lines.

I’m saving…no…I’m MAKING time!

Beep. Beep. Wahoo!

Please place your item

in the bagging area.

It’s placed.

Please place your…

It’s. In. The. Bagg.ing. Ar.e.a.

Please place your item…

Motherfucker, it IS in the bagging area.

Item not bagged.

Skip bagging. Ha! There.

Beep. Beep.

Please place your item

back

on the belt.

What? Why? It’s in the bagging area.

You said bagging area. Hello?

Assistance required.

Yes, yes please assist me.

Do your job. I am not

a cashier. Can’t you see that?

Please place your item in…

am I wearing a smock? Am I?

the bagging area.

Belt! You said the belt!

Please wait for assistance.

No! I won’t!

Fine! Happy? Waiting

for assistance. To finish

select your payment method.

Card not read. Please wait

for assistance.

Please kiss my ass.

Please wait for assistance.

 

Ready or Not, Here I Come

1…works it in…

            2…kids later, I’m pleased with the struggle…

3…(pause) 4….(pause)

                                    5…(rhythm established)…

6,7…Yeah, right there (kegel’s working).

8..uh oh…9… I’m…gonna…(No! Wait!)…

10…I’m sorry.

Yes. Yes,

you are.

 

 

poems by Holly Day

Holly Day wrote to the editor , see what she had too say.

Dear Poetry Editor, Vintage Poetry:

For me, November is all about waiting for things to get really bad around
here, when the weather's gotten just cold enough that all the trees are bare
and all the plants are dead and most of the birds are gone but it's still
not too cold to try to spend as much time as possible outside because any
day now, it'll be 30 below zero and you won't have any choice but to huddle
inside, immobilized under blankets until spring. I've got a blanket on my
lap right now as I type this, but it's more for the cat than me. If it
wasn't for the cat hiding under my chair, curled up in the folds of the
blanket and purring against my feet, I'd be fine without my office blanket
for at least another couple of weeks.

Hope you like the poems.

Holly Day

Short bio: Holly Day is a housewife and mother of two living in Minneapolis,
Minnesota who teaches needlepoint classes in the Minneapolis school
district. Her poetry has recently appeared in Hawai'i Pacific Review, The
Oxford American, and Slipstream, and she is a recent recipient of the Sam
Ragan Poetry Prize from Barton College. Her book publications include Music
Composition for Dummies, Guitar-All-in-One for Dummies, and Music Theory for
Dummies, which has recently been translated into French, Dutch, German,
Spanish, Russian, and Portuguese.







Holly Day
878 20th Avenue Se
Minneapolis MN  55414 USA
(612) 378-4781
lalena@bitstream.net

        Z

last night I dreamed about your fingers on my flesh
my body too small to take your words anymore,
I am not your handpuppet, mister last night I

screamed myself awake to putrid memories of you
the linoleum pattern of the laundryroom
floor your anticipation festers inside of

me, I am not as fucking stupid as you think




Holly Day
878 20th Avenue Se
Minneapolis MN  55414 USA
(612) 378-4781
lalena@bitstream.net

        Yesterday, 1995

After he was born, I threw out
all the photos taken of my life, the
days before his birth, determined to become
someone else, wanted to be
new, like him, my baby.

sold all my records to pay for
rent and groceries, tossed all my clothes that didn't fit
all I owned crammed in a backpack
jewelry I could sell for
cash, enough to take me and my son

somewhere safe




Holly Day
878 20th Avenue Se
Minneapolis MN  55414 USA
(612) 378-4781
lalena@bitstream.net

        Tourist Season

we'd sit by the lake and he'd tell me stories
of the places he'd been, with convoluted names like
"Nebraska" and "Mississippi"
the difference in the way one pronounces "Kansas"
and "Arkansas." The people in his stories

were as exotic as the places they lived-men
who cut sheet metal into animal silhouettes
bent spades into birdhouses and
turned old train cars into hotels.

I wanted to badly to be with him in Colorado
to stand in the exact spot where four state lines met
to take a small rubber raft over rocks and dangerous rapids
and survive it all. He kept saying, Next time, next time, I promise.
Next time."

I waited by the lake for him to come and get me
waited with my suitcase packed, ready to leave
visions of Indianapolis burning holes in my brain
but he never came back to get me, never took me away.







Holly Day
878 20th Avenue Se
Minneapolis MN  55414 USA
(612) 378-4781
lalena@bitstream.net

        Dreaming

when I became pregnant
I spent the first few weeks trying to kill it
stopped eating, slept
stomach down against the cold dirt
beat myself until it hurt. Then

other thoughts began to set in
of what this child could be if it lived
how the nightmare of his or her conception
could unfold until a wonderful dream. Now
I slept with my stomach to the ground
to protect the child within
my body a shield against
the wolves prowling outside my door.

when he raped me a second time I knew
he had killed our baby, the way
one knows that the sun has risen
even while still deep in sleep. By morning
I knew I was completely alone.








Holly Day
878 20th Avenue Se
Minneapolis MN  55414 USA
(612) 378-4781
lalena@bitstream.net

        Wednesday

The seagulls search the sand, seeking
the crippled claws of the cold, curled up
beneath the burnt rubble of the beachside boardinghouse
the remains of the fire, thirteen boys dead.

Diligently digging deep into the dead, digging past
the makeshift markers left in memory
by the sympathetic who saw the squatters' squalor
but still seemed surprised by the flames.

Vintage poetry presents: Poems by Donal Mahoney

Caseworker Takes Notes

I was there the day

there trickled down the wall

of an old man's room one roach

that stopped across

a canyon in the plaster till

the old man's elevated slipper fell.

The roach absorbed the blow

and as though perforated for that purpose

dissolved into an archipelago.

The old man looked at me

and patiently explained, "Despite my 

constant smacking of its brethren

one roach each day will trickle down that wall

and pause and pose as if to say,

'Go ahead and smack me, that's okay.' "

To take advantage of the archipelago at hand

the old man pointed toward the last palpitating island

and once again explained,

"Each roach I smack, you see,

offers me that same good-bye--

one last flicker of antennae."

Donal Mahoney 

(©)

copyright

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Donal Mahoney has had work published in Vintage Poetry and various print and electronic publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his earliest work can be found at http://booksonblog12.blogspot.com/

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