Antinous' Ring
Three Poems
by John Grey
THE LAST DAYS OF A DEMON
His tongue is a swollen rotting weight.
He’s losing his grip on language.
He drifts into grey sleep,
and his mind is breached
by shards of memory,
skittering, silver things,
that scatter like startled fish in the dark.
His wife sits beside him, grips his hand.
She speaks intermittently.
But his responses are merely vacant nods,
his movements dull and unthreatening.
She peers into the glassy pits of his eyes
that once held constellations –
the bear, the lion, the snake.
But his vision has retreated
to unreachable depths.
They leave behind a vast, devouring scar.
Of a once manic rage,
the fire is gone.
Only the cold remains.
And as a hungry void,
the faint echo of a dying star.
HOW A SMALL TOWN PROVES INFLUENTIAL
IN THE RISE OF THE HORROR GENRE
After the flood
and subsequent landslides,
corpses pop out of holes
in the ground
like prairie dogs.
Light, meant for
the eyes of the living,
now shines on empty
worm-riddled sockets,
white bones and green flesh,
and the last of a tattered
Sunday suit.
People turn their heads,
run screaming,
or cover their children’s faces.
But one kid starts sketching.
Another takes notes.
A third cries “Papa”
as a skull rolls his way.
A CERTAIN BLOODINESS
So much blood.
On the sides of the house,
on the dog's coat,
swirling across the surface
of the swimming pool.
Forget the summer warm.
Forget the goodness of life.
This morning, eyes are heavy,
light is coarse.
Breath is either held or evaporated.
There is no clarity,
just bloody chrome on car wheels,
bloody laces tying sneakers,
even the cardinal perched on the garage roof,
redder than it's ever been.
Don't bother mourning.
It's the way of things.
Bloodshed is written into the contract.
Buds may have buds
but bodies were made for bleeding.
No protection. No prospects.
The body says it all.
Kids puke their futures away.
Faces at windows rot into submission.
One less for breakfast
unless, of course,
blood is on the menu.
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.