Origami Microchap

                                                            Poems

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Cover art by Lauri Burke

•

WAITING OUT THE STORM

More lighting of the sky,
a circuitry of heat and clouds,
the dark ripped apart
followed by heavy rain
with no wish to mend it…

inside the house,
monotonous, graceless time
and then a thunder roll
empties the rooms of any brightness,
as candles are lit
for slacken eyes and bodies.

Too loud for ghosts,
too electric for hauntings,
not close enough
to be the ones we know
who also flash and rumble and break.

The storm is weather’s work…
the reaction borrows from ourselves.

NOTHING IS DIFFERENT

I have no need to pretend
that nothing’s going on.
Everything’s normal.
I’m not trapped in this vortex
of life and death.
There’s not something in the air
that has it in for me.

I stay in this house as much possible.
But that’s not a problem. I like it here.
And I don’t step outside
without wearing a mask.
But masks are the new fashion.
And my tastes in clothes
lean toward haute-couture.
I keep six feet away from people.
But when haven’t I?
We’re all at our best at a distance.
And I wash my hands a lot.
It’s in my nature.
I’ve washed my hands
of so much over the years.

So, despite what you might think,
I am not in quarantine.
I’m inside myself.
There’s a difference.

HAVING LOST SOMEONE

In the darkness,
overcome with grief,
maybe a hundred,
a thousand, restless souls
throughout the city
whisper as one,
“What do we do now, sad people?”

I’m not saying
they’re the ones
gathering under the streetlamp.
But there’s a great sob
coming from that direction.
And I can’t believe
those are tears of light.

•

John Grey © 2024

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Cover art 'Hold that thought'

by Lauri Burke

•

THE HAWK

I’m with the red-tailed hawk
as it plunges earthward.

But I’m also with
the tiny field mouse
as it scurries to safety
across a far too open field.

But I am not with the invading army.
Only with the villagers
who have so much to protect,
but so little protection.

For a hawk is nature,
instinct, survival of itself
and of its kind.

And the mouse’s defense
is the sheer numbers of mice
that occupy the predator’s feeding ground.

The invading army
is the virulent ego-fed whim
of some tinpot dictator.

And the village just happens to be
in their way.

We’re talking human nature.
The hawk may perch on our poles,
our wires and our rooftops.
But it wants none of it.

IN PRAISE OF THIS DAY

Coffee busts the eye-webs.
Trees whisk away shadows
like brooms. Sun drifts its fiery bait.
The coming day hooks on.

Last night, I complained
of time's inordinate length,
too many hours waiting,
too much of life
toothless and despairing.

Birds feed my appetite for song.
Even the lowly sparrow
comforts the lowly man.
Gilded and blue-skied,
the day looks supreme.

Last night, I was a lizard
crawling into bed.
expecting sleep
to cover up my boredom.
Today. I rush about.
so much to do.
none of it a whit
without me.So what if the night is death.
the bills come due.
The day is life
for a fraction of the cost.

THE REACH OF A PLANE CRASH

a plane crash somewhere in the world

is a bout of turbulence
on my next flight

is me hugging
the sides of the scat

and pressing my feet
hard to the floor

a hundred dead
is my ultimate survival
my great outlay of breath
as wheels touch ground
brakes squeeze hard
against forward motion

a plane crash somewhere in the world

is me knowing that
someday some place
I will have to fly again

THAT OLD SCHOOL PHOTO

I'm standing second from the right
before the giant Moreton Bay fig tree
that dominates the school playground,
hands at my sides.

Girls are seated in chairs,
boys placed in rows behind them
according to height.
I'm ten years old
and up front in the male contingent.
This is before my teenage growth spurt.

I wonder what happened to all these others.
some whose names I know, others I've forgotten.

A few I expect have passed on.
One or two may have wished they had.
Some surely found happiness.
Others, no doubt, were not so fortunate.

All in all,
they’re just too plain innocent
for what life has in store for them.
They smile for the camera.
As if that could stop the future happening.

HAVING LOST SOMEONE

In the darkness,
overcome with grief,
maybe a hundred,
a thousand, restless souls
throughout the city
whisper as one,
“What do we do now, sad people?”

I’m not saying
they’re the ones
gathering under the streetlamp.
But there’s a great sob
coming from that direction.
And I can’t believe
those are tears of light.

•

John Grey © 2023

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Cover by JanK

•

THE MAN WHO MAKES THE DULCIMERS

Along the banks of the creek,
three fishermen toss their lines in
but the fourth guy,
back against an oak trunk,
is whittling black walnut
down to its inner dulcimer.

With old tools on rough wood,
he’s as deliberate as the surgeon
who retuned his heart’s tap tones
not six months before.

His recovery is music,
not yet the sound,
merely the body,
but his ears strike a deal
with those fingers,
and the melodies are patient,
can wait for how long it takes
for timber to be shaped and strung.
Hours go by
and the fisherman barely
feel a nibble.
Not so unlucky is the fourth guy.
His catch is a part of him.

THE MUSIC OF THE SHORE

It is almost silent
but not quite –
not as long as waves hit beach
with a gentle thump,
roll up the sand,
stop inches from my toes.
I’ve been waving those feet
like a conductor’s baton,
directing the entire ocean orchestra,
but only the merest timpani respond.

COUNTRY LIFE

In the countryside,
roads narrow,
tractors hog the shoulders,
vegetable stands
hail the eye,
even a herd of cows
interrupts my journey
on one rutted track
as it stumbles
between fields –
there is no speed in these parts,
just the languor of my motor,
the ease at which things grow.

OCTOBER RECLAIMED

It's October
and I’m picking apples,
more of a game than work.
The food I packed,
a pickle sandwich,
is parked under a tree,
in a Batman lunch-box
to confuse the squirrels.

I started in the early morning,
with the sun, my father,
my elder brothers.
Toting ladders,
they walked, I ran,
up to the orchard,
its bright red fruit
saying "Pick me. Pick me."

A neighbor waves.
A crow flies off in disgust.
The first warmth of morning
disturbs the chill.
My young flesh warns
the tepid weather,
there'll be sweat
before we're done.

I reach up,
pluck the stem,
and the first honey crisp
plops into my bucket,
to be followed by another,
and another.

This was a perfect day back then,
Then I grew and the idea of picking apples
just seemed foolish.
But now, I look back
and its perfection reemerges
like sun slatted by shadows,
old times in these times,
forever ripe,
robust and dangling.

•

John Grey © 2022

Click title to download

Cover by JanK

•

RECUPERATION DREAMS

He breathes through a mask
so he can make it by the holocaustic ruins,
and allows visitors, so he can sleep in their presence.
Leaning back into the pillow
can erase image clusters, noises, faces,
seems capable of creating a new existence
beyond this one that's endured
nightly bombing raids.
So what if the heart-monitors
only work in reverse,
and there's the threat that someday
he'll be unplugged.
Awake, he struggles to separate
explosions and brain-killing drugs,
flesh wounds and neuroleptics,
hospital ward and ossuary room,
intact bodies and bloody remains.
The lone man's clock
ticks with superior disharmony,
the dragonfly in the mind
as real as the plane in the air,
seeks shelter from subsequent fire storms
in an IV, a chamber pot of pills.
Objects rest on a bedside table,
gifts of flowers,
relics of a life broken into,
everything stolen but the skull
that induces visions independent
of what placed them there.
Tonight's dream sees him young,
colt-like, impressing the ladies
with a dash across the sand.
As long as his subconscious
sells an enemy at bay,
he is always going to be
its best customer.

THE DIFFERENCE IN LIGHT

Each house
receives morning light differently.

Of course, some of us are still sleeping
and only the hardy and productive
are up at this hour.

They’re in the kitchen
making coffee,
frying eggs
and toasting bread

And some are even out
on their property,
milking cows
or starting up the tractor.

Some get that shine
filtered through a window
or full in the face.

Others have a way of knowing it’s there
even as dreams consume their attention.

Sometimes it rains
and we’re all on equal terms.

But today, I open my eyes
to a room sun-lit and brilliant.
I may be late to it
but that’s early enough for me.

MY CURRENT VERSION OF SOLITUDE

The odds of my ever seeing you again
are like one burst of foam among my toes
against all of the ocean.

The roll of waves,
far from bringing new life
to the shoreline,
leaves behind the scrim of death.

Every shell, every stone,
is from out of the past.
I shade my eyes
from the gleam on the waters.
I would not do that
if any of the brightness were you.

Up and down the beach,
a woman in red bikini
a pale imitation of you,
is hauling two big dogs
on a leash

By their laugh,
they could well be hyenas.

COME FALL

The birds are restless.
Time for migration is upon them.
I’m standing by the window,
staring up at broad blue sky,
gracelessly flutter my feathers,
awkwardly wave my wings.
My instinct has never quite died.
But no credible flock will have me.

•

John Grey © 2022

 Click title to download

Cover: Montreat NC bridge

by JanK 

•

ROVING TROUBADOUR

This is another coffee-shop
with a makeshift stage
and its attention elsewhere.

Despite the microphone,
my heavy heart is drowned out
by others' conversation.

Sadly, from town to town,
I have wandered through
searing heat and freezing cold,
with my guitar
and a few old folk songs
but I've received no recompense,
no pleasure, no atonement.

Many roads traveled
but they all lead nowhere.
Many tunes sung and strummed.
Can ears be any deafer?

I'm a stranger in my own world.
And I had such plans to be familiar.

SCENE FROM A DIFFERENT MALL

Heat shimmers off the outside walls
of the abandoned mall.
Weeds poke through parking lot cracks.
Gulls populate the unemptied dumpsters.

Doors are padlock,
windows taped-up
as if still expecting the hurricane
that passed through here years ago.

A kid rolls up on his Schwinn.
He was in the womb
the last time this place saw foot traffic.
Now he peers in at
what used to be a shoe store,
and the remains of a restaurant,
its menu advertising specials
for Wednesdays and Thursdays long gone.

He has no reaction to what he sees.
This mall is not his memory.

WAKE-UP

I keep watch
at break of day,
silent
even as the birds begin
their approach to the feeder,
look out from my perch
at trees and homes
at the start of another day
in their history,
so early in the day
my sensibilities
are still in black and white,
a conscious being
but, as yet,
without the improvisations to prove it,
barely aware of my immediate past,
eyes breaking in the light ray by ray,
immersed in stuff learned by rote
from having lived
so many years,
with sips of coffee,
filling in the parts of my body
that need this extra wake-up call,
slowly assuaging my deepest fears
that my mind will be welcoming
when caffeine arrives at its doorstep.

THE TALE OF THE BOOKSHELF

They’re all here on your bookshelves:
heart-stoppers, loin-grabbers,
mind-blasters.

I wonder how much
of their joy or dread
is within you.
And do the wounds of the invented
scar the body of the real?

Maybe, they’re just for show.
Maybe, you’re just for show.
But I like to think you resonate
with memorable characters,
concupiscent love-tropes
high drama, low comedy,
brash wit, action-packed intensity.
What a kiss that would make.

It’s a bad habit of mine, I know,
to judge people by their reading habits.
But it’s better than scouring the pills
in your medicine cabinet.
I’ve no wish to know what you’re dying of.
I’d rather get wise to your living.

A FUNERAL IN SULAWESI

In the courtyard,
a dozen pigs
are trussed up for slaughter.
The deceased’s friends and relatives
will bludgeon his way
into heaven.

After the feast,
they’ll drink palm wine
from bamboo cups,
toast the dead man’s health
long into the night.

Pig squeals,
high sparks of fire,
is all they will remember.

WE’RE ON OUR WAY TO
                SOMEPLACE WARM

Another goodbye,
more hugging, kissing,
then waving,
finally faces pressed hard
against windows,
to mime the flattening
from the plane’s exhaust.

Seen from a distance,
they seem buried
in that airport coffin,
the dead whom we are
too excited to mourn.

Engine roar drowns out
the harsh recriminations
of the ones left behind,
the short time it takes
to have forgotten them already.

•

John Grey © 2021

Click title to download

Cover: Fallen tree over art

by Lauri Burke

'Change is Constant'

•

A SHORT HISTORY OF MY POETRY

There are the poems I wrote
back when I thought
I'd be rewarded for them.
And there are the poems I wrote
when it dawned on me
that I would probably go unheralded.
And then there are the poems
I wrote when I realized that,
though I'd never be
recompensed for my efforts,
I would still survive.
And those are just the love poems

THE REAL STORY

White-tailed buck with a bullet in his side
barrels on through the woods
ignorant of the source of pain
or the trail of red he leaves behind.

The herd is farther than he remembered.
Cold and dark are creeping in.
Its saving grace is that he hasn't the head
to question his own mortality,
merely the instinct,
the belief in invincibility.
despite the stuttering slowness of his gait.

That's the story I have to tell you,
not some babyish drivel about talking bunnies
and chattering, well-wishing birds.

I don't know what happened
to the buck or where he fell
or what he longed to tell his offspring
with his dying breath.

It's life. I get it.
When it's cruel, don't be surprised.
You can only get so particular
in this arbitrary world.

Of course, you're already asleep
and not hearing any of this.
It's a warning. Don't listen.

NOTHING LIKE IT

There’s nothing quite the same
as a rod of steel bent round the brow,

a cheek, a blooming field of glass,
and eyes the color of police lights.

And, as for conversation,
what’s not to like about

a stranger asking,
“Can you move your legs?”

or the incessant scream of sirens.
And then there’s the pain,

confused as to where your body
should hurt the more

and the tree front and center,
like a heavyweight boxer

standing over you, while your brain
counts backwards from ten.

Sex is not like this.
Nor is the feeling of a job well done.

So crash your car.
It’s like nothing in the world.

And, if you’re still in the world,
that’s a bonus.

•

John Grey © 2020

Click title to download

Cover: Angel Oak

from web

•

THE WOOD CHOPPER

He’s out there chopping wood.
He swings his axe back so far,
brings it down so hard,
I almost pity that unfortunate log.

He’s a brave man.
The photos of him in uniform prove it.
He would stop what he was doing,
run to save me,
if I cried out, “Help, I’m drowning.”

Even layered for chilly fall,
his muscles rise through the woolens.
And look at that jaw.
It juts like a comic-book hero.
And if I tumbled from the roof,
he’d catch me.
Or if my bedroom was on fire,
he’d dash up the stairs,
into the flames,
drag me out alive
without thought for himself.

And how tall he is.
He could reach up
and help me down
no matter where I was.
But also supple,
with long legs, long arms.
So if I fell into the well,
he’d could slip down to ground level,
below even,
to haul me up.

Capable of so much
and he’s out there chopping wood.
Between the blade
and that oak bough,
something must have needed saving.

THE HUG ORDEAL

Such an ordeal for me

pulled one moment
pushed the next

through a labyrinth
of narrow passages

down a couple of surprise steps
that made me stumble

up another
where I tripped

and almost fell

then through
a series of narrow doorways

all the while
arms tugging at my shoulders
dragging my waist

down a long corridor
pitch black
but for the light
at the end
growing brighter and brighter

which proved to be
the homestretch to her body.

ANOTHER EGRET POEM

The egret steps gingerly
like it’s avoiding hot coals.
But its mission takes it
wading through six inches of water,
the cool edge of a pond.

Then it stops suddenly,
launches its beak like a javelin
at the water’s surface,
then flings its long neck backward
as it downs a silver fish.

These are the laws of nature:

1/ The egret, head held high,
long-legged,
feathers fluttering white,
routinely catches the eye.
2/ There is no percentage
in a poem about a silver fish.

SULTRY SUMMER TWILIGHT

Today was long and thickly matted,
like an ascetic, and drawn up
into an unseen topknot of sun.
It wore a necklace of clouds,
heavy and gray.
And steamy as some universal destroyer.
It rubbed sweat like ashes
all over my body.

In the swelter of wisdom,
I saw time distinctly
as past, present, future,
events as myth or reality
and sometimes
the two combined.
All in aid of lugging myself home
before dark set in,
toes curling,
shirt dripping,
a raindrop at my heel.

•

John Grey © 2020

 Click title to download

Cover from web

• 

MY FIRST TIME IN THE OUTBACK

I'm thirteen. We've been driving
for hours. An excuse to stop
has been rising up to the surface
of our skin like sweat.
There's activity to the side
of the road. My father pulls over.
We wipe our faces as one
as if to help brake the car.
A farmer and his family are
auctioning off their possessions.
It's a time when there's a lot
of this. The little man is tossed
out of his own dreams. I'm a little
man myself, can barely see over
two dozen shoulders.

When we get there, the
tractors are long gone
but the contents of the house
are strewn across the front lawn.

My mother is eager to be part
of it. She runs her fingers
over the chipped china, holds
the silverware up to the light.
"Good quality," she says to my
father, who stands back from the
bidding fray, keeps his silence
if not his peace. "There but
for the grace of God," I can
imagine him thinking, looking back.

A young girl, my age, smiles
at me. Instinct tells me she's
the farmer's daughter though
I'm never sure of this. Certainly,
when a brat of a child walks off
with an armful of dolls, a tear
breaks the chain of that smile
for an instant before surprisingly
resuming even more broadly than before.
She’s losing everything.
She leaves me unsure how that’s done.

THE ECLIPSE

I went hunting in the Maine backwoods
during the partial eclipse of the sun.
I just finished college
and was out to prove to my father
that I wasn’t all brain,
that I could handle a rifle as good as him.

I went with a couple of friends
whose shooting skills
were taken down by too much alcohol.
I heard something in the brush.
They just figured it for the DT’s.
It was a buck with antlers two trophies’ high.
But then it suddenly turned dark.

And I noticed how my friends
suddenly got the staggers,
thought the world was ending,
while the deer’s shape remained steady
and, though I couldn’t barely see a thing,
I could feel the animal stare back at me,
as if the eclipse had come to its rescue
and it would be a pity if I fired away blindly
and happened to get a lucky hit.

By the time this natural phenomena
was over, and the sun took back
its pride of place in the sky,
my friends had staggered back
to the truck, the buck had completely
disappeared, and I was just standing there,
pointing my barrel at nothing.

That was the closest I got
to bagging anything on that trip.
I returned home to the disappointment
of my old man and the thought
that maybe I wasn’t the hunter I thought I was.
The eclipse had been a sign.
Get on with your real life.
My friends couldn’t remember a time
when they were ever that sick.
To me, it was a moment when a darkness crossed my path.
I am thankful it wasn’t a light.

A QUESTION WITHOUT ANSWER SESSION

So when does it begin?
I keep staring in the full-length mirror,
naked from the waist up.
Flat and pale from throat to navel
except for a slight ridge where the ribs
show through -

no abs, no pecs, nothing approaching tone.
And, in the background.
I can hear my father taking an axe to wood.
blade crunching through oak so fierce
that poor tree doesn't stand a chance.
So what can I fell?
My arms stretch from shoulder
to middle finger without the merest
hint of a contour.
Not even flexing can pop a bean of muscle
out from the frustrating plane.
Later, he'll be half under the car.
digging into that auto's underbelly
with powerful hands and an eye
for how the pieces arc supposed to fit.
I’ll hang back against the garage door,
staring at his ancient black sneakers,
older than me by all accounts.
Sure, there are sneakers in my closet.
But when am I cleared to wear
what will become the sneakers?
And he'll kiss my mother on the cheek,
wrap an arm around her waist.
I won't be embarrassed.
merely bewildered.
So when will I see the point
of all that affection?
Or he'll ask after my homework.
It's already done but.
until he gives it the approval,
it's merely some numbers,
names and dates dreamed up
by a boy in his early teens.
So when do I get to tell myself,
good job?
For now, I'll stick with the mirror.
There are no answers.
Half-naked reflection will have to do.

Click title to download 

Cover art: Azteca

by Helen Burke

•

DESERT DRIVE

Talk flamed out. Radio incoherent.
Landscape's beginning to impose itself.
Road flat. Mountains in the distance.
Always mountains in the distance.
For all the asphalt below, tires can't help
but wind up the dust. Where are we?
Must be off the map by this.
Fingers fiddle with the dials. Was that
a trumpet sound? Mariachi? Maybe
Calexico. Nah, no one ever plays them.
More static. Like the stunted trees.
Solitary boulders. Scattered bones
from someone else's narrative.
Always between towns. Throat dry
and you feel like you're a refugee,
somewhere between countries.
Passenger closes eyes. Driver opens his
the wider to compensate. Sips from
the water bottle. Forget the gut.
Fluid goes to wherever it's needed.
Checks his watch. Making good time.
Bad times always do.

SMALL WORLD MADE LARGE

Lying on the pond's edge,
I get so low, so focused,
that the Jesus bugs
walking deftly across the water
are helicopter-size.

Surface tense,
legs long and hydrophobic,
no sinking here,
a miracle knows its place.

And minnows,
swollen to the size of whales,
circle slowly,
lost in their own reticence

.

And here comes a dragonfly,
a 747
of such glistening color,
it brings my eyes to heel.

I am motionless, silent, and fascinated.
The miniscule is gigantic.
My magnitude gracefully gets out of its way.

PINE FOREST

At the base of a pine stand,
needles gather like fallen comrades,
interlace into a thatch-work whole,
wave a blanket for the soil
that turns the heat, the rain around,
into a windfall of growing.

From the fragrance of the blowing branches
to the soft crunch of the earth below,
the forest is whatever I would want of it:
eyes and nose seduced
by a line of lush green perfumed beauties,
shoed feet flush against a soft and giving ground.

It's hot and bright beyond the canopy
but foliage tempers,
filters brightness
into scattered sparkle,
spreads shadow thick as a bear's pelt.

Here, trees for a cathedral,
stained glass lichen,
warbler organ music,
a glittering aisle
between brown-trunk pews,
I hike toward an altar,
unreachable thank God.

THE RIP-RAW

Love is created under the threat
of mutual destruction
for even its tender base
is composed of
explosive elements.

What we think is
the vitality of feeling
is really a drop into a swirling pit
of violence and dementia.

Being in love,
we exist in a constant petrifying state
of imminence
for such emotion is beholden to
the thunderous impossible fusion
of two living beings.

Reasonable people don't get involved.
That’s why lovers have only themselves to love.

•

John Grey © 2017

Click title to download

MATRIARCH

FRANK

Feelings move the body around
more than any muscle or sinew.
For example, I don't just travel places.
I go exactly where my heart tells me to.

When Frank died in that car accident,
my head thrummed, fingers knotted,
I lost six babies, my skin broke out
in plague, and my liver grew more tumors
than the population of Chernobyl.

At the wake, doctors operated on me
to no avail.
During that long funeral procession,
I couldn't believe how the undertakers
didn't toss my dead weight into the coffin
beside my lifelong friend.

Yet, everything began to heal after that.
Good memories cleared warts.
Acceptance stopped brain cancer in its tracks.

Frank was gone
but there were other people in my life,
all nearby, all still living.
Each was a prescription
long in advance of the disease.

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK ON PARENTS

They lost perspective
when they opened their eyes,
unfolded their hands,
like gunfire
snapped the cords that
sent us kids recoiling.
Astride white mounts
of opened doors and half-light
they gave edicts
to the paupers in the dark.
With voices louder
than midnight rain,
they shattered our rooftops.
Hard to believe that cows
chewing through the snow
to get the grass were them
or birds chirping
the fleeting birth seasons.

In room after room,
they built ponderous mills
they said were castles
with slow turning wheels
and loud and rusty machinery.
They made reprisals out
of food and drink,
out of cloth and wallets
thin on the money ground.
They were ever anxious
to tell us everything is patience,
to add children should
be seen and not heard
and occasionally discarded.
With weary voices,
they said we look forward
to the day when our great labors
come to an end.
They made looking forward sound like
the hardest work imaginable.