Mint & Gold Poets
John Grey
Joanna George
Deby Cedars
Human Roadkill
The possum by the roadside
still breathes
but its splattered torso
is fused to the asphalt with blood.
Crows look down
from oak branches.
They're hungry,
can’t wait for the creature
to permanently play possum.
Meanwhile, we humans
embellish our deaths with ritual:
a wake, a funeral,
a priest staring grimly
into an open pit,
reciting, deep basso,
“in the midst of life,
we are in death,”
before thirty friends and relatives
garbed in colors dark enough
to match their moods.
We figure our lives matter,
give importance
whatever runs us down.
consecrate the roadside
we're mashed into.
We paint crows white
and call them angels.
New Gods
My baptism dodges itself, on the outset of my PCOS,
as though surrendering to death and
I adopt new Gods reincarnated from my diet.
Not knowing which seed to grab for initiating the ceremony,
I worship these seeds feverishly,
arranging them all on a plate and I have them together in a gulp,
pumpkin, chia, sesame and flax seeds,
doctors working on my ovaries, cherubim to reach my red goddess.
My devotion to the orange pulp of a papaya, soft as any tissue, and
the sweet yellow of a pineapple remains unwavering,
even when it drizzles, at least the new gods show mercy to my monthly droughts.
But PCOD still remains a mystery to the bearded ancient priests of the church
they have not yet discovered the ailments troubling many women,
it is as invisible as our reproductive health to their blindfolded eyes.
Orchard of dreams
I live in the orchard of my dreams,
Where the strange fruit is never as it seems,
But it's sweet surrealism dances on my taste buds,
As I ponder life and love.
And I climb the tree branch by branch sinking deeper into the delta waves.
The great escape from reality where of gold, the roads were paved.
Will I find you there in the grove of sweet splendor,
In the mind's Eden of pleasure?
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Stand, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, 'Leaves On Pages 'Memory Outside The Head' and 'Guest Of Myself' are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Ellipsis, Blueline and International Poetry Review.
Joanna George writes from Pondicherry, India. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Parentheses Journal, Cordite Poetry Review, Isele magazine, Honey Literary, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, West Trestle Review, Lumiere Review, Paddler Press and others. She tweets at j_leaseofhope.
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