Poems by John Grey

WE MAGICIANS

Magician's pulling a rabbit out of his hat.
Cute rabbit. Interesting hat.
Where do you go to order a hat
that can accommodate both head and rabbit.
Still, we find a way
to encompass both brains and heart
inside these selves of ours.
Even the magician.
He can think about what makes planes
stay in the air
and he can love a woman
(maybe even his assistant in
the gold mini-dress)
all in the same breath.
Maybe he could pull that brain
out of his head,
wrench the heart from his chest.
These are rabbits in their own way,
he could say
though our applause would surely
drown him out.
Then he does the disappearing trick.
Assistant is locked in box.
He waves his wand over it,
opens the door, and poof she's gone.
But that's nothing that we don't do.
Pretending that stuff
can magically disappear into thin air.
Even going through our rituals,
our dramatic effect.
At best, the bad times
slip through the trap door,
reappear later when the audience goes home.
Hard to think of an attractive woman
in a gold mini skirt
as a bad time though.
And I'm not sure I should be
clapping wildly at her vanishing.
Did the good ever leave
and did I grin stupidly when it did.
Or did I realize the trap doors
can work to my advantage as well,
telling the world I can live without her,
the magic is really what I can't live without.

SOME THINGS CAN’T BE HELPED

The guy who speaks to stones gets no response.
Not from the stones at least.
All he asks for is a simple statement.
“It wasn’t your fault that your friend drowned.”

Tree trunks are a better bet.
They are living things at least.
“Is there blame on both sides?” he asks.
The bark keeps its opinion to itself.

What about the earth itself?
It’s been around a long time,
has seen everything from war to famine,
from earthquake and flood to deadly disease.

Sure it knows how careless the boy was,
how you didn’t really mean that dare.
It’s what kids do.
Consequence is for grownups.

And then there’s the lake.
And the cliff that overlooks it.
Most of all, the edge is like a magnet
drawing the foolhardy toward it.

Nothing says a word, takes responsibility.
Not even the drop, all thirty feet of it.
The guy shakes his fist at the landscape,
then swings a punch, thumps himself accidentally.