In oaks,
I see their jealousy of pine trees.
Beauty be damned...
it's the cold language of dying.
Suffer change in the kingdom
of endurance.
Pines are suns.
Oaks are frothy clouds.

In winter
oaks stare at me
like drunken friends
across a table.
"Where did it all go,"
they slobber
in the bitter wind.
Pines find religion
or marry with three kids.
Oaks can't even be
green with envy.

Songs blur in the rain,
but their intent is sharper -                  
I'm learning the birds can chirr                
their discontent as well.                       
Half awake, I see things
that do not exist,
one flittering shadow more alive
than the whole of flesh.
I spy the specter of the rain itself,
the shape of lifers repetition into death,
the rattle of the roof as humored
by the dark, hollow soul of a floorboard.
The past is here dragging its
soundless chains.
The future lulls its own longing
with the ruffle of a curtain.
It's too early to be morning,
too late to be night.
Barely in my body, I watch
this hourless hour remap my journey.
In rain, I find I'm in the sheets
but never where I left me.
I hear birds trill more
than just their ancient love.

Sit down to music
but the stool's kicked out
from under you.
Go to clothe yourself in forest
but it's winter
and every tree's undressed.

Stand beside him for comfort
but his fists turn ice blue,
his eyes coil up
like rattlers.

Try the field,
humanized by fences,
but isn't that
a dead rabbit in the grass,
doesn't a coyote
prowl its boundary.

Maybe a kiss,
those tiny arpeggios,
glissandos of lips,
but isn't his mouth
the same piano,
teeth for keys,
but the stool you need
for support
skidding away from him
across the slippery floor.

Go to his arms,
forest of old,
but skeletal foliage
only adds to the chill.
Stand beside him,
though touch bums,
eyes bite.
Try your field,
recognize its fences
be the dead rabbit succored
by the coyote of desire.

John Grey’s bio