Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2026
The Forest Fire, poems by John Grey.
The Forest Fire
The forests are burning.
Smoke rolls up into the sky,
black and ash-filled.
The moon glows red
like it too is on fire.
‘Turn back,” orders the cop
on the only road through here.
So I take a slow U-turn,
head back the way I came.
I should have known better anyhow.
I saw the news on the motel TV.
But sometimes reality
needs me to be there.
And then…I discover
it doesn’t want me anyhow.
“Leave me to the experts,” it says.
I idle a while at the shoulder,
wind down the window.
The intense heat adds to the conversation.
“Sorry,” I say.
“I’m only passing through.”
I learn again
how small a visitor should be.
The Immigrant
What is home anyhow?
It’s nothing more than paperwork –
a stack of lies stapled together
by men in suits who never sweat.
I struggle with the connection
of home to belonging.
I expected a continuity –
like the curve of a signature.
Instead I’m trying to exist
within the boundaries of apartment lease,
work permit, and a mailbox
that sometimes brings word from home,
but mostly frightens me.
I’m working through
the labyrinth of survival.
heightened by the fear that freedom
is just labor in a different form.
It’s beautiful, exhausting,
and must be ready for inspection
on a Monday morning,
before the sun rises.
That’s when faceless men
stamp on some papers,
“Insufficient proof.”
“Insufficient proof” is not my name.
Tell Me A Story
The forest is the great storyteller.
How willingly it reads from its pages.
I listen as I watch.
I admire the illustrations.
The oak explains its seasonal rotation.
The fir, why it exempts itself
from stripping naked
just because it’s Autumn.
The birds sing as is their custom,
add a winsome soundtrack
to the unfolding adventure.
The spider has his own chapter.
He spins a tale
as adroitly as he does a web.
A squirrel provides comedy relief.
A chipmunk acts as his nervous sidekick.
The forest reads on.
Its voice is like a breeze.
Maybe it is the breeze.
© John Grey
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Willow Review and the Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the MacGuffin, Touchstone and Willow Review.