Dark Fiction Factory welcomes back guest poet, John Grey. Please enjoy his following poems.
THE MIND-READER
The reader of minds is in your head.
He advances, slowly, carefully,
into the crawlspace of your brain,
where your thoughts brood in the dark.
He’s unafraid
of your murk, your corruption,
the snakes that slither in and out
of the cracks in your cranium.
The reader of minds
is right at home in your evil.
He doesn’t need maps.
Your insidious judgements
draw him to them.
Same with your nefarious plans.
And your cruel unspoken opinions.
Your venom, your malevolence.
is laid open to him
like a meal on the table.
He’s a hyena ripping into
the raw meat of your mind.
He’s a cockroach nibbling on the crumbs.
And he is the inspector
of every sickness, of everything heinous and malicious,
of all of your vile bile.
Then, when he’s done,
the reader of minds gives you the go-ahead.
You’re corrupt.
You’re a degenerate.
You’re diabolical enough
to make your way in this world.
AWAKENING
Awakens.
Yawn long and deep enough
to suck the bats off the cave roof.
Rubs eyes
and the red comes loose.
Dank breakfast,
left over ice-caked beast.
Claws snap. Skull crunches.
Flesh disintegrates
like dandelions.
Morning. Light crawls
through crevasses, fissures,
like snakes, illuminates the moss
a vile green, bends through crystals,
buffs the dark brown walls.
Crawls out of coffin.
Sun. Blinks. Hands to sky
in broad, unconscious prayer.
Stumbles on rocks, on shiny gravel.
Warmth thaws the wary.
What's this greenness? Vile.
And the stabbing of bird song.
Blood trickles from the ears.
Wind smells toxic fresh
And the flowers...
kill with color will you!
And what are these strips
crisscrossing the plain.
And signposts hammered into earth
Names? Only God is named!
Scratch at these pathetic trails.
Rip up the stakes but the damn
things won't budge. And writing.
Like the creatures scratched into
cave walls by the dead.
What's next? Humanity?
Cackle. Scream. Wail.
Noise braces the jaw,
fires up the muscle, balloons the chest.
Dots on the horizon.
Perspective wires imagination.
Not ants. Not busy hills lapped up
with rabid tongue.
Iron and clay and wood.
Movement. Kicking up dust.
And building. Thwack. Thwack.
Hands of fire. Of hammers.
Damnable how dwarves
congregate and make themselves monster.
Huge girder limbs. Giant crane talons.
Up goes this city thing. Blocks lake,
drains river, makes concrete nests in mountains.
Thumbs to forehead. Press.
Toe to rock. Kick.
Mouth to landscape. Spit.
The end of the world is at hand.
Armageddon. And it's wearing blue overalls.
And there...a three piece suit.
And chatter like teeth gnashing.
Stomach growling. Lips salivating.
Talk like hunger. No sated growl.
Just the beast put on notice…there will be more of us.
More of this.
Grab a few worms. Some hunks of grass.
No drink. Too dangerous. Thirst can lick
the walls of cave. Leave no sign.
Bad dream three nights back.
Cry of the hunter. Dogs.
And blood. Catacombs of blood.
Underground rivers of blood.
Don't go out again.
Live off tiny scurrying animals.
No more light.
Go blind like fish.
Slink farther and farther
into the labyrinth.
Adapt to breathing the foulest air.
Become a shuffling noise, a strange panting,
an unseen terror to those
who wander from their path.
Go to the deepest pit of the inner world,
crawl down into the bottoms of the
gurgling wells.
Pretend to love. Pretend to care.
You are a heart.
Beat you bastard.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A …
I don’t complain
but nor do I take pride in the way I live.
All day, I smuggle myself into
the wooden jaws of my rest.
At night, I become this
untethered underworld god,
minor but bloodthirsty.
I am protected from feeling,
am immune to the tears
I leave in my wake.
And I cling to the past,
survive in the present,
have no concept of future.
I exist in the moment:
either peaceful,
couched in dirt from the grave,
or violent,
as my needs make muster.
Mine is a life
that must prey on other lives.
It can be used in no other way.
JohnGrey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Floyd County Moonshine. Latest books, “Covert” “Memory Outside The Head” and “Guest Of Myself” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings.