A Poet’s Autobiography
I write poetry
because it was
the last art form standing.
I took piano lessons
but my hands, eyes and ears
never could come to terms.
With easel, palette and canvas,
I strode off into the landscape
in hopes of becoming the next
Thomas Cole or John Constable.
My first disproportioned oak
would be my last tree.
My sculpting skills
resulted in a dash to the emergency room
to reattach a fingertip.
I finished three chapters of a novel
but lacked the perseverance to go on.
In my one and only ballet class,
I slipped on the lake floor
and almost drowned the swan.
But I discovered that,
after every one of these failures,
I could retreat to my bedroom
and, with pen and paper,
jot down how miserable I felt.
After that, I could easily adapt my scribblings
to my disappointments, my fiascos,
in everything from romance
to work life to family.
One day, back in the mid-nineties,
something good happened to me
and that inspired a poem
of sheer optimism and joy.
I made it a point
not to put it with my other poems.
Other People
Other people have entire lives that are not mine.
They go to baseball games. They shop at Macy’s.
And they invest money on the stock exchange.
They sit, one among many, at the dinner table.
Other people have family dogs.
They attend banquets, celebrate trophy winners.
Their good deeds roll up into what they call “charity work.”
They try to be disagreeable only part of the time.
Other people are rarely alone and, if they are,
they tend to pace about the room.
Their writing life consists of taking a phone message
for somebody who’ll be home later.
Other people take their medicine religiously
and their religion like medicine,
They garner meaning from the day’s meaningless labor.
They do their utmost to be nothing at all like me.
John Grey is an Australian poet and U.S. resident recently published in New World Writing, North Dakota Quarterly and Lost Pilots. His latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert, and Memory Outside the Head, are available through Amazon. You’ll find more of his work upcoming in California Quarterly, Seventh Quarry, La Presa, and Doubly Mad.
Sparks of Calliope 