{"id":14561,"date":"2022-12-14T09:53:38","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T07:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=14561"},"modified":"2022-12-17T09:56:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-17T07:56:59","slug":"poems-by-john-grey-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=14561","title":{"rendered":"poems by John Grey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two sides to my waking<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I awake in the room next to your sick-bed.<\/p>\n

Through the thin wall,<\/p>\n

I hear grunting sounds, sandpaper coughs,<\/p>\n

your rough imitation of your own voice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Somewhere in my dream,<\/p>\n

I had you whole,<\/p>\n

recognizing me,<\/p>\n

your mouth forsaking dribble<\/p>\n

for the comforts of a smile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And now it\u2019s light,<\/p>\n

I crack my eyes to see,<\/p>\n

through lace curtains,<\/p>\n

the oak tree. some yellow weeds,<\/p>\n

lawn in need of cutting<\/p>\n

children next door playing,<\/p>\n

their dog running free.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Everything\u2019s alive out there.<\/p>\n

Too bad, you don\u2019t know the way,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A hike in June<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A tiger swallowtail flutters through<\/p>\n

the pointed blue-eye grass.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bright yellow flag rims the pond.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A meadowlark, poised on a post,<\/p>\n

whistles a loud tee-you, tee-yerr.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A groundhog nibbles the blades<\/p>\n

at forest\u2019s edge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s four for now,<\/p>\n

but a hundred<\/p>\n

before day is done.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Isabella<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She hungered<\/p>\n

and she slept.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In between,<\/p>\n

she was so shy,<\/p>\n

so unassuming,<\/p>\n

even her shadow didn\u2019t take.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Her motion was her identity:<\/p>\n

tiny footsteps,<\/p>\n

head\u2019s dull reflection<\/p>\n

in the buckles of her shoes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She moved almost a stillness.<\/p>\n

Ghost-like, she bypassed time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On a July afternoon in New England<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s four in the afternoon
\nfrom here to the New York border.
\nEverybody’s swaying in a hammock.
\nA warm sun’s witness to all that expanse.
\nNo one’s working. No one’s arguing.
\nAnd there’s no such thing as garbage day.<\/p>\n

A glass of liquid occupies my hand.
\nI wonder how it got here.
\nIce-cubes are clicking and clanking
\njust the way they’re supposed to.
\nIt’s not a beginning.
\nNor is it an end.
\nIt’s just a pause in the middle.
\nAnd every last one of us
\nis taking advantage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A million phones ring. Nobody answers.
\nOther places leave a message.
\nBut they just don’t get the message.<\/p>\n

We are not to be disturbed.
\nMy flat spine won’t hear of it.
\nEven my dog, in fact all the dogs
\ncelebrate, in their own way,
\nthe landscape’s downtime.
\nRover’s curled up in a ball.
\nHis ears are turned to the off position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two sides to my waking   I awake in the room next to your sick-bed. Through the thin wall, I hear grunting sounds, sandpaper coughs, your rough imitation of your own voice.<\/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":[1595,77],"tags":[1596,1123,1393],"class_list":["post-14561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-74","category-english","tag-egophobia-74","tag-english","tag-john-grey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-3MR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561","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=14561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14562,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561\/revisions\/14562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}