The Gorko Gazette

I’M JUST LUCKY, I GUESS

If svelte
is style’s first commandment
then you obey.

There’s something about
the way you conserve space.

You contain everything necessary
to be adored.
And nothing incidental.
No attendant faults or fissures.

In the absence
of your name and face
plastered everywhere

we have this strange
but welcome phenomenon
of you being here with me.

---

THE YEAR THAT WAS

In 1958,
a fin meant a car
not ‘Jaws’
and the Welcome Motel on route 6
greeted couples
who paid by the hour.

In the dark of midday,
was like a rodeo
of humping
from novice riders in their late teens
to local lotharios
who barely knew the names of their mount.

Lots of chrome on the bumpers of course.
It was the gold standard in those days.
And hair on the guys slicked back
and glued
while the gals pegged pants to legs
like a second layer of skin.
And then there was Elvis.
When wasn’t there Elvis?

I get this from the old man –
his youth, for better or worse
but always forever.

In 1958,
he was the coolest kid on the block.
Now he’s old
and scheduled for a hip replacement.

He never tires of talking up the 50’s.
In the present, everything’s a blur, a haze.
The past is where the details are.

---

I TALK TO THE TREE

I’m in conversation with a tree.
It’s an American elm – ulmus americana.
It grows close to my back fence,
can brag of deep roots and a green canopy
as high and spread as an airplane hangar.

I remind the tree that it’s early November
and time for the leaves to come down.
Or it’s early Spring and the elm must do its best
to protect the robins’ nest
from the prevailing March winds.

I’m no mystic, no shaman.
But speaking my thoughts out loud
comes naturally to me.
Even if the one I’m speaking to
can’t talk back.
I’ve been at this long enough
to imagine its responses.

I inform the elm of upcoming weather forecasts.
I apologize for scratching my name in its bark
when I was young and stupid.
I thank it for the shade it provides
and how it inspires the occasional poem.
I don’t mention the time I tried to climb it,
fell and broke my arm.
I know what it would say.
I don’t want to have to say it.

---

ABOUT THE ARTIST

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ‘Between Two Fires’, ‘Covert’ and  ‘Memory Outside The Head’ are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE…