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The Newest Ones
In a comer of the yard, a tiny narcissus
pokes through winter dross.
On the sidewalk, children stroll
in late semester restlessness
toward the school bus stop.
The flower just happened
but these kids are still young enough
to be dressed by anxious hands
down to the knots in their shoes,
the unruly strand of hair spit plastered.
The new life-forms come at me from all angles,
the bloom, a cold snap too early,
nascent brains dreading class-rooms.
Tomorrow, my beauty may be dead,
these unruly torch-bearers
could be the ones who reach through
the fence and pluck it for no reason.
Admire while you can, my motto.
Be thoughtless while it lasts,
I silently instruct the neophytes.
The narcissus flutters in the chilly wind.
Kids batten down loud and hard against
what they'll someday need to know.
With Nicole At Cafe Zog
In this coffee house,
we sit opposite,
emotional clones,
you, warming your hands
on a glass mug of tea,
my nose toying with coffee dregs,
We swap sadness,
attend each other's poetry
like night nurses.
Done with Java,
I drink your eyes
devouring my words,
that map of me
whose coordinates come
as easily to you as breathing,
a hand-held prayer,
a bloody snapshot.
Yours peel like petals,
one meaning moving aside for another,
all roads leading to the ruins,
the ship sunk in the harbor,
the old tower fouled by birds.
We laugh at the way
we bear down on ourselves,
our pain, a dusty flag of metaphor,
our motives, dubious as dreams.
John Grey's
latest book is What Else Is There from Main Street Rag and his work has appeared recently in The Xavier Review,
The Malahat Review, Bellevue Literary Review and Birmingham Poetry Review.
Email: John Grey
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