John Grey

LIFE BETWEEN THE LINES

Chicken colored lanterns

continue to…

what could possibly go wrong?

Crickets rub the teeth of their wings.

Cicada tymbals click.

Darkness doesn't cool,

merely adds another suffocating layer.

Current's inescapable pull.

runs deep,

delegates each floating body intentionally.

The devil’s got me into this...

the distance, the pain…

down into pockets as empty

as a dying man.

Evening when we name it ice,

evening says so much

(face in the mirror

still sore from harvesting)

flatlining of another deadly day.

floor of the altar of grime

for the ace up your sleeve

has gotten you nowhere –

try to snare those lightning bugs

with clapping hands,

scour the long grass for chirring cricket

the tree bark for a cicada

blowing its voice box on a mate.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Rathalla Review. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.