Live Encounters Poetry & Writing June 2026
A Walk Home In Spring Rain, poems by John Grey.
A Walk Home In Spring Rain
Cool spring rain,
puddles in the road,
roots and buds on high alert
Rainy day,
the people in the passing bus windows
have that solemn gray look
of never coming back this way.
I have a vision of eternity –
folks under awnings
waiting for the weather to clear.
My hair is matted.
My shirt clings to my chest.
There’s dribble on my watch-face
What can a guy do
but head for home
and damn the weather.
Snails experience
my brisk walk
as light speed.
Serenity Prevails
On a night filled
with everything imaginable
from a drive-by shooting
to a prison breakout
to a fall from a sixth floor hotel window –
my head is in a pillow’s hands,
my body’s half hidden by blue sheet and blanket,
and, as I snore barely louder than a breath,
dreams come to enlighten me
or take engaging liberties with the past,
with feel-good nostalgia,
dollops of love,
wrapped in a quiet
that pacifies, endures,
so I can wake up next morning
fresh and hopeful,
blissfully uninformed.
Birthday Boy
The year has been run through me like a spear.
I’m bleeding April.
I’m spitting May.
January burst my lungs.
August seared my brain..
December was the sharpest point
and it took out heart and kidney and liver
so now the times are shish-kebob.
It’s the new year
and what do I have
but another raw and savage weapon to look forward to
brandished by who knows who.
The calendar looks so innocent
but the evil hides behind that baby giraffe.
Soon enough, it will find my weak spot
and start ramming.
What choice do I have but to suck it up
and live.
Disconnected
Shower water
breaks on my skin
into gleaming bracelet gems.
Border patrol
wipe the desert clean
of interlopers.
“Illegals”
mouth the lips
of a small town bar.
A mother’s hands
and a father’s pipe
are my clearest memories
of parents.
The underground
befits human waste
and brown rat conquest.
The woman in the long evening gown –
the more the dress glitters,
the more her eyes go dim.
On a wide expanse of shoreline,
the sea collapses in a faint
at my feet.
The fields are squared off
by chainlike fence,
as seen from the air,
like a crossword puzzle
in which all the answers are cows.
Unlike flowers,
strip malls burst into life
over time.
After rain,
such invigorating sunshine.
Even the potted plants
believe
they came by their pots naturally.
© John Grey
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Novus and Abbey. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the MacGuffin, Touchstone and Willow Review.