Stanzaic Stylings

DECEMBER MORN Ice halos every bare bedraggled tree. Garden withers out of sight. The box-hedge browns but holds its shape. Along the fence sprout tiny pines, all ghosts of Christmas past, green candles flamed by sun. Morning rays glisten off snow mounds, melt the flakes on bedroom windows. Out of warm flannel sheets, a family emerges, a yawning but instructive lesson in how bodies come to be. The father wobbles and looms above all others like a bewhiskered moose. The mother follows in his shadow, a trail of trembling bones, chilly breath, on course for the thermostat. Children trampoline bounce to cold, unfriendly floor, dare the weather to slow their progress. The life in fields, in woods, is sporadic, maybe a hare, its coat winter white, or a squirrel burrowing aimlessly for its forgotten cache. But the people lead, fill the spaces of the house with cheery voices, clattering kitchen sounds, the hiss of water boiling, the ra...

HAWAIIAN MARKET PLACE Green onions, fried rice, soy sauce, star fruit – I nibble on smells as I roam the marketplace. One stall offers natural medicines from the rain forest – lavender and indigo. I sniff myself a cure or two. Someone unzips a banana. Another cuts into passionfruit skin. Seeds ride sweet yellow juice into the salty warm. And everywhere there’s pineapples, ripe and sun-burst on opening. Later there’ll be fireworks. But, for now, I’m checking out a lilikoi, its bright yellow skin, tart pulp. It tastes of Oahu, Maui, Kauai and the big Island. It makes me feel sea-air brushed, water lapped, and miles from any neighbor. John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in the Tau, Studio One and Columbia Review with work upcoming in Naugatuck River Review, Examined Life Journal and Midwest Quarterly.  

They hate each other in airports. The hum of jets is like an interloper urging them to argue He's always blowing his nose for one. He says it's the air-conditioning. And she weeps, even when there's no one there to see her off. And the metal detector surely zaps their brains. Can't find their gate. Are they even in the right terminal. And other people waving out the big glass windows. Why is there no one to wave for them? It's all his fault. Her fault. It has to be the eternal time killing. Making sure they're at the airport early so the plane can be delayed. An extra hour of nostril havoc, of uncontrollable tears. They've been wrenched out of routine, of life even, forgotten in this cavernous place by everyone but themselves, and the company is remorseless. What is that pilot staring at? No pretty airline lady, we do not need your pity. And whose idea was it that we should travel? A nose blower, a weeper... where do they have to go? They're...

FRANKIE BOY He tethered his pit-bull to the last fencepost standing. He slept in an old truck on blocks. Scars struggled with tattoos for control of his surfaces. The stream behind the old mill was his personal washtub. His old man died drunk and in debt. His mother was a memory of bright red lipstick forever missing the target of her lips. He took odd jobs where he could. And panhandled. And dealt. And used his fists when convincing otherwise was required. He had a brother who either died in the Gulf War or was serving time in state prison. depending on who you asked. He tried to enlist but was turned down. He drove an old Chevy with an exhaust like a farting Goliath. Parents warned their children about him. He played two roles in the lives of those kids  - what could harm them, what they could become. The cops were always stopping him to give him a hard time. They were too late. He already had one. J ohn Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Re...

THE GANG                                                                     smoking, rooftop sunning, MTV at all hours, McDonalds, Boston Baked Beans and Red Hots. pilfered cigarettes, beer thanks to a kid of 21 we knew - fished, paddled, tried to water ski, stifled giggles at the shy parade of a girlfriend's first bikini played piggy-back in the water, splash wars, near-drownings, followed by bottle rockets at twenty paces gritted out teeth at school's twelve year lashing program - hated teachers and cops - fed our lockers on whatever didn't embarrass us in sleazy neighborhood shop windows, yearned for a piercin...

IT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR DYING ON ME She lies in bed, near death, her face pale as a wedding veil. I used to think of death as Africa, a country so far, so mysterious, where I or no one I knew would ever set foot. A wedding veil? I must be recalling the photograph in the album - half her face hidden in lace. And Africa... a car stops at a red light, its speakers thumping like jungle drums. Only the past wears wedding veils now. Today's bride must be seen to be believed. And Africa is front and center in the brochure I pick up from the travel agency. I can get there in a heartbeat, not in a heart that beats no more. Beliefs don't die. They just get more ridiculous. And comparisons don't wear so well. Or are lifetimes out of fashion. Here is someone with the sense draining out of her, who cannot speak or remember, whose arm-tubes feed her like she's in a womb. Ah, babies -there was one -just one - snapshot ...