The Hawk
The hawk is not self-conscious,
nor is it bashful, reserved,
and a session on a psychiatrist’s couch
would be a waste of time
for it or any other raptor.
It doesn’t see itself
as some feathered monster
leaping down on victims
to sate its bloodlust.
The hawk is a hunger-driven survivor.
Its purpose cannot be masked.
Innocence or guilt
means nothing to it.
Anthropomorphize all you want
but predator and prey
do not translate
The hawk grabs a field-mouse
in its talons,
soars up to its nests,
devours that creature
down to the snap of its bones.
The hawk does not care
what you or I think.
It’s alive,
perched on a cliff,
high in the mountains
where opinions don’t count.
Vacation In a Fishing Town
A small seaside town, motel with indoor pool
a soup and salad place adorned by plastic palm trees,
a shuttered arcade, salt water taffy, a souvenir store,
and you leading me around by the thumb –
that’s a vacation in your eyes.
You peer in foamy, lapping water,
as if looking for a sign,
and then step in shoeless
with pants legs rolled up below the knee,
and expect me to follow –
my toes are sacrosanct.
Throw in a rotting shell-encrusted pier,
a brochure of everything you can ever know
about the place from the neat little cottages
to that reliable morning fog bank,
and the stars at night, guaranteed to shine
brighter here than elsewhere
and you’re like a house that’s just sold
after having been boarded up for years.
We paid for this giddiness
and you’re going to get your money’s worth
down to the last rum punch
in the pseudo-tropical bar.
I draw stick people in the brown sand.
And walk up and down the shoreline.
A few mistake New England for Florida,
work on a nondescript tan.
You sprawl out on a beach chair, listen to the water,
its undulation , the ebb, the roll.
The local color’s not so colorful.
The panorama’s out of Stephen King.
The locals ignore me unless I wish to purchase something.
This is not Spring Break.
No one’s dancing half-naked on golden sands.
Everything smells of fish. Even the rum punches.
You know why that is?
Because most everyone here’s a fisherman.
What to you is a vacation
is, to me, a conclusion.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Soundings East, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. Latest book, Leaves On Pages is available through Amazon.
The hawk is not self-conscious,
nor is it bashful, reserved,
and a session on a psychiatrist’s couch
would be a waste of time
for it or any other raptor.
It doesn’t see itself
as some feathered monster
leaping down on victims
to sate its bloodlust.
The hawk is a hunger-driven survivor.
Its purpose cannot be masked.
Innocence or guilt
means nothing to it.
Anthropomorphize all you want
but predator and prey
do not translate
The hawk grabs a field-mouse
in its talons,
soars up to its nests,
devours that creature
down to the snap of its bones.
The hawk does not care
what you or I think.
It’s alive,
perched on a cliff,
high in the mountains
where opinions don’t count.
Vacation In a Fishing Town
A small seaside town, motel with indoor pool
a soup and salad place adorned by plastic palm trees,
a shuttered arcade, salt water taffy, a souvenir store,
and you leading me around by the thumb –
that’s a vacation in your eyes.
You peer in foamy, lapping water,
as if looking for a sign,
and then step in shoeless
with pants legs rolled up below the knee,
and expect me to follow –
my toes are sacrosanct.
Throw in a rotting shell-encrusted pier,
a brochure of everything you can ever know
about the place from the neat little cottages
to that reliable morning fog bank,
and the stars at night, guaranteed to shine
brighter here than elsewhere
and you’re like a house that’s just sold
after having been boarded up for years.
We paid for this giddiness
and you’re going to get your money’s worth
down to the last rum punch
in the pseudo-tropical bar.
I draw stick people in the brown sand.
And walk up and down the shoreline.
A few mistake New England for Florida,
work on a nondescript tan.
You sprawl out on a beach chair, listen to the water,
its undulation , the ebb, the roll.
The local color’s not so colorful.
The panorama’s out of Stephen King.
The locals ignore me unless I wish to purchase something.
This is not Spring Break.
No one’s dancing half-naked on golden sands.
Everything smells of fish. Even the rum punches.
You know why that is?
Because most everyone here’s a fisherman.
What to you is a vacation
is, to me, a conclusion.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Soundings East, Dalhousie Review and Connecticut River Review. Latest book, Leaves On Pages is available through Amazon.