GAS Featured Poet: John Grey

 

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, Leaves On Pages and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Lana Turner and International Poetry Review.

I’M NOT WEIRD

For a long time,

my usual connection with reality 

had become unbearable.

Then we met

and I welcomed the detachment.

from the everyday.

But I’m a lover

not a schizophrenic.

My tragedy is not destiny.

I am wounded

but not torn apart.

I am victim of one particular woman

not harsh and unescapable fate.

I do not make my home in delirium.

I don’t need medication to resume 

my place in the world.

Yes, there are some days

I'd rather watch a woman

with a beard of barbed wire 

and wonder why she doesn't shave. 

And I’d rather think about what catches 

in that hair: some greasy motes of egg, 

a drop of indelible coffee. 

And I wonder who kisses her?

Do his lips make a tunnel

in that mountain of fur?

But that’s normal.

The invisible scratches all over my face

are normal.