John Grey - Two Poems

Colony of Pain

It's dusk
and bats pour out of cave mouths
fanged and leathery,
screeching hell's hunger.

You're at the window
watching shadow too swift
and pulsing
to be just the thin, drained
silhouette of something.

This is a dire fist
closing and opening,
a crackling, howling cloud
of furious living
that masquerades as death.

There's a child
in your stomach
and so much out there
could swarm down,
steal it, feed its blood,
like honey, to another
squealing newborn.

You feel baby kick a little
and the night is chanting,
"Come out now."
Sure it's speaking
to the bats, but the
cave within you
shudders at the mouth,
creatures within
shriek and salivate.



No Secrets 

I stay clear or secret societies. .
No Masons, no Theosophists,
no trendy Ivy League Clubs.
I don't know the handshakes,
haven't partaken of the rituals,
can't tell a cabalist from a greengrocer.
My life is out in the open
where the dogs can bark at it,
passing cars near-miss its forward motion.
Sure there's poetry
but that old one man arcane misalliance
has long since swung its doors free
to the world.
Is it my fault that no one enters?
There's the Tongs, the Mafia,
even the Order of the Golden Dawn.
None have claims on me.
Nothing's worth knowing
unless I can share it with whoever.
Even when I live alone,
I'm not a member.



John Grey is an Australian born poet, works as financial systems analyst. Recently published in International Poetry Review, Chrysalis and the horror anthology, “What Fears Become”with work upcoming in Potomac Review, Hurricane Review and Osiris.