*a remix of a song by gidge frost
Tag: art
so what’s left – john grey
after the parades die down
and three hundred million of us
are left with nothing to do
but pick up trash from the sidewalk:
take down the signs
as troops are dispersed
to go home
and look at themselves
in the mirror
and the presidents and senators
and colonels and capitalist
are secure in their counting houses
and it starts to rain
on flagstone on brown boot
on hair and bald head
on whatever flesh dare expose itself
even on a faded tattoo of a heart
and on rusted auto of course
dead junco live pigeon
even all over two people
who cross themselves
in a flamboyant Godspeak
then quote the desiccated Gospel of love
and rats tinkle bells
like old Rita’s cow
and ancient tongues speak
a diffused paranoia
and the young stir their names
in the muddy ground
with the last of the slicks
made of broken limbs
from trees once everywhere
now shipped in from elsewhere
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Homestead Review, Poetry East and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Harpur Palate, the Hawaii Review and North Dakota Quarterly.
water me down – ghost #11
When they tell you through
The television that
You are still not quite enough
I stew my own tender meats inside me
I watch as you preserve yours
To be devoured in private
Your eyes are kitchen windows
I am looking up at you
from inside the pot
When you ask
What’s getting to me
I become a soup kitchen
Ask you to taste it in front of me
Does it need more salt?
The anger makes a fine marinade
It often spoils the whole batch
Emotion will do that
Dilute the point
Onlookers eat me up
Leave me with only broth.
figure 8 – fm ghost
We could skate around
the issue like a figure 8
each falling down forever
the holes of a sideways shape
Where would we be
in this infinity dream?
backward into eternity
or forward toward unknown
We could cut our palms, make a pact
to help each other usher change
mix & match our blood
but the colors stay the same
We could do nothing
simply take a breath
swallow all the stones
we’ve placed within our throats
Truth is we tend to complicate things
in most cases make the bleeding worse
from a fight that isn’t there
to wanting the last word to get in first
What would we do if we
were what we claimed to be?
tumble into eternity
or headlong toward unknown
Falling forever
Into infinity
Sideways always shaping
Who we claimed to be
found wikipedia poem – the french destroyer bambara
commercial energy / varying order and similar error constants / floor to collapse / derived from the equation / throughout the history of pine / totally nude erotic dancing is expressive conduct / an optimal balance of biological control attributes / ixnay on the hombre / she exhibited her etchings / many people who committed minor offences were executed by him / the project on middle east democracy / the war continues / interlopers from the future responsible for this / to support any government / to form a new coalition / radio stations and translators / purchase and drain / trials and friendlies / the french destroyer bambara /
the stranger walks into town – ghost #117
The stranger walks into town,
one hush: then many more moments
or silence,
Butterfly! I saw a butterfly
and a dead butterfly is still
a butterfly.
Once you listen enough you
can almost hear the train
conductor driving through the
roots of the earth.
Some people say I waste my time…
Don’t we all sometimes..
today i’m definitely feeling like the forest – ghost #13
today i’m definitely feeling like the forest.
like despite the fascist metal shadow of one thousand windows
i am still just the forest.
just the truth.
just the closest thing to unadulterated.
pure and untainted i wander into myself and understand this is endless.
i don’t have to be anything other than a forest unto myself.
and there is grace in acknowledging that i know that i am clearly dying.
to watching my roots pull up by the insatiable grasp of my limbs.
earthworms digging in the beds of my feet.
i am not the city.
not today.
today i’m definitely feeling like the forest.
poem #1 – ghost #3
When you left the clocks stopped working.
Their hands, my hands, they all forgot to move. I fell asleep to the last of your scent on my pillow and awoke months later in a new season.
I do not recognize the landscape here and all of the trees have changed.
contract – ghost #1
i’m missing my contacts,
i yell up to him
from our new bathroom
in the city
i didn’t plan on
returning to
you’re missing your context? he calls back
Dear Stranger, – ghost #2011
Dear Stranger,
I very much enjoy a complete unknown.
To cast a net into the vast ‘everything is possible’
and come back caterwauling or else enchanted;
I swim in murky waters,
walk deer trails during new moons
when one can’t even see the smallest
fingertip at arm’s length.
You are a moon that needs a telescope,
these letters are lenses we twist
and if I see your glowing surface,
you also see the eye of my blue
peeping at you in wonder.
Who are you?
Has anyone ever asked?
What are your phases?
There’s something to a dark side never seen,
a promise of an edge once stepped over,
the moving of a hand through the surface
of still water, a darkened foot,
a detached hand.
A fish gasping in the air,
pulled from a child’s hands
and fileted by a grandmother.
What’s within is its own unknown.
The wet and dark interior
of its own infinity of stars,
electric with memory,
chance and even hope.
Hope is its own terror,
the eggs of the shark
spilling on the butcher’s block,
a leech between your toes,
a cave-in after you’ve passed
the deepest cavern
and become trapped
with dark water, lightless,
cold,
or maybe with a full moon,
a song, a soft bed
and a shoulder to rest your head on.
south broadway press 