{"id":14243,"date":"2022-06-15T08:58:52","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T06:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=14243"},"modified":"2022-06-15T08:58:52","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T06:58:52","slug":"poems-by-john-grey-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=14243","title":{"rendered":"poems by John Grey"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Dismal Place<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No joy in the world<\/p>\n

merely cattle nibbling lush grass<\/p>\n

sprouting from tilted tombstones<\/p>\n

in an old historic graveyard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And three old men on the one wooden bench,<\/p>\n

each with hands crossed over chest,<\/p>\n

silent as stone angels,<\/p>\n

waiting for the ground beneath to claim them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And faded names and dates.<\/p>\n

Crosses like moss-stained teeth.<\/p>\n

Nothing to love. No one to remember.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The fence is down and<\/p>\n

dumb animals have found their way here.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all you need to know.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ode To The Radiators<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The radiators<\/p>\n

are the oldest things in the house,<\/p>\n

as old as the house itself in fact.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been more than one boiler<\/p>\n

that\u2019s pumped heat into the myriad pipes.<\/p>\n

But the same gray ribs of metal<\/p>\n

have been there to receive it, pass it on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On cold mornings, I gravitate<\/p>\n

to the one under the bedroom window,<\/p>\n

not the chilly arms of other people.<\/p>\n

A hand near touching<\/p>\n

hustles blood into the nearest vein,<\/p>\n

sends it racing to my body\u2019s farthest outposts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sure they cough and rattle<\/p>\n

like old soldiers out on parade.<\/p>\n

And their valves hiss<\/p>\n

worse than a punctured truck tire.<\/p>\n

But they\u2019re almost family members.<\/p>\n

Like the ones who live here,<\/p>\n

if they don\u2019t make noise,<\/p>\n

no one knows they\u2019re there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I admire their patience through summer,<\/p>\n

their readiness as fall grows colder by the day,<\/p>\n

the fight that they take right to winter,<\/p>\n

and their great care<\/p>\n

when shutting down in Spring –<\/p>\n

never too early, never too late.<\/p>\n

Radiators deserve their own poem.<\/p>\n

They have, if not beauty,<\/p>\n

history on their side.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the distance,<\/p>\n

the microwave pings,<\/p>\n

the refrigerator hums.<\/p>\n

But I am not listening.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her Mouth<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the downpour of her face,<\/p>\n

her mouth is a puddle.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If her eyes are on fire,<\/p>\n

the mouth opens wide<\/p>\n

and she shoves more wood<\/p>\n

down the gullet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her ears are small<\/p>\n

but they can flap like wings.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when her mouth<\/p>\n

makes loud noises like a jet.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Whatever seeds her cheeks<\/p>\n

grows something pinkish brown.<\/p>\n

Her mouth harvests as needed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When her nose is swatting flies,<\/p>\n

her mouth sends her tongue out<\/p>\n

to dispose of the bodies.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When her hair lights up<\/p>\n

like a halo,<\/p>\n

she pops a bulb into her mouth,<\/p>\n

and it too shines.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My Presence<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Light and air in abundance,<\/p>\n

earth everywhere,<\/p>\n

and yet it\u2019s the body<\/p>\n

that feels way too much.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rich land,<\/p>\n

generous weather,<\/p>\n

but wasted on the need<\/p>\n

to walk about<\/p>\n

or even sit and think.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m like everyone else<\/p>\n

on this planet,<\/p>\n

a lifetime of taking,<\/p>\n

a death that gives back so little.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I sometimes ask myself,<\/p>\n

why was I born.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is no answer.<\/p>\n

The world is saving itself.<\/p>\n

for a better question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Dismal Place   No joy in the world merely cattle nibbling lush grass sprouting from tilted tombstones in an old historic graveyard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1566,77],"tags":[1567,1123,1393],"class_list":["post-14243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-72","category-english","tag-egophobia-72","tag-english","tag-john-grey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-3HJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14244,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14243\/revisions\/14244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}