A COUPLE IN A ROOM

They’re in a room.

And not just any room.

By their very presence,

it’s the room they are in.

Maybe it’s morning.

Or evening. Or dark out.

Or light. Or a certain day

or month. A particular year.

But the room could care less.

Only within matters.

Only each other.

And nothing of anything else.

They huddle. They hold

each other. They’re the

room’s center of power.

They tell it what to do.

            The room obeys

            admirably.

REVOLVING

Death was always a revolver, lying around,

waiting for someone to pull the trigger.

Every chamber was empty but one.

There were potential shooters everywhere.

If they really wanted to kill you,

there was nothing you could do to stop them.

The news was more about knives.

Little jabs from the stories

of what happened to others,

whether it was war or disaster

or local or even family.

For some reason, the blades,

sharp as they were,

couldn’t stab deep enough

to cause the ultimate damage.

You wore the scars, if not proudly,

then at least with deference.

As you grew older,

you didn’t fear that pistol as much.

There’d been shots fired.

But most missed.

A few bullets caused mere flesh wounds.

But the aim was improving.

And your body felt more and more like a target.

The sympathies of others didn’t help.

Sure, they stepped into the line of fire for a moment

but, at the sound of the bang,

they fell away,

left you exposed,

just the way you wanted it.

In the end,

you were so sore and tired and pain-wrecked,

you picked up that revolver yourself,

fired away until a bullet found its mark.

Come morning,

they found you in your bed.

Dead of old age was the conclusion.

But dead of what it takes to die

was the truth.

PAWN

He didn’t wake up one morning

and say to himself, “Yeah that’s me.

I’m the runt of the chessboard.”

He’d been small and powerless as a baby

The years hadn’t changed the situation.

He had his own house — more of a crib

really – with a mortgage looking over it.

And a wife and two kids to share

in his lowly status:

Plus extended family — a hierarchy

that forever doomed  him to a bottom rung.

And a job that shunted him this way,

that way — atypical pawn – of limited

movement, potential, disposal,

and no chance of being a king.

The city with its. roads, its traffic signs,

its cops, its bankers,

only existed so as to tell him what to do.

He attended church to confirm his insignificance.

And played cards with his buddies

though even the winners didn’t really win.

Alcohol found him an easy mark.

So did reality TV.

And then-the doctor’s found

cancer in his brain —

inoperable and in charge.

THE SUN’S PROXY

So little of the sun’s rays

make it to the attic window

and the subsequent shine

does no more than

illuminate some flies,

living and dead.

The past lives here

so it’s only right

that brightness look elsewhere

for its truth

and that a pervading dimness

tends to the fully-packed cardboard boxes,

the over-stuffed metal trunk.

I come up here with a flashlight,

so that I control memory’s narrative,

glossy up an ancient photograph

yet leave a wedding dress in shadow,

glimmer off a bronze baby shoe

but let sleeping love-letters lie.

In this cramped space,

I am the sun,

uncaring of a jigsaw puzzle

but stopping to polish up

a favorite model MG sports car,

shunning school report cards

while bringing out the colors

in a far-too-small-for-me

hand-painted psychedelic shirt.

The true sun

must concern itself

with the limited world of insects.

In low-ceilinged storage space,

the life I’ve lived

revolves around me.

TO BE WHAT THEY’RE LOOKING FOR

A beautiful beach day,

perfect for the tan that will give me

that G Q look just in time

for Miss Right – the phantom lady.

Sea breeze is blowing,

my air’s full of sand

and smells like salt –

hope that doesn’t chase away this woman

who’s not about to show up anyhow.

I tried hawking myself

in the nighttime,

but neon always focused

on my worst side

and shadows had their own dark things

to say about my character.

I’m a compendium

of fidgeting theories,

in constant search for that holy grail –

my best aspect.

What if that special someone prefers

natural off-white to bronze?

And I’m not so muscular.

Is my bathing suit just being honest

or is it asking for trouble?

I could dress in a suit

and look as square as six Salvation Army generals.

Or shop where the kids shop

and come off as a survivor of a time-machine crackup.

Some things they say should be left to chemistry.

So ultra violet rays contribute to oxidative stress,

melanocytes produce eumelanin.

Really, I’m doing all I can.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Tenth Muse. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and  “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa and Shot Glass Journal.