Doomsdays give me a reason to go on;
the plagues and pandemics,
the hurricanes and floods.
Someday California will finally
fall into the ocean
and I’ll jump up as exultant
as a mega millions lotto winner.
The pandemic has given me
the spring, the summer,
the magnificent everyday things
that I’ve missed for so many seasons.
I look up at tress,
I listen to birds,
I go down to the beach and swim
because the city is far away
with its fear and death.
Its innumerable tourists
are stuck somewhere else
having to make something of their time
with no hope of vacation
with its tour book distractions.
The dead are gone
and there’s always someone to say:
to somewhere better.
Maybe they’re right, if not,
at least it gives them a chance to speak
a few words that feel their way
blindly through this life for meaning,
finally.
I live disasters and die the rest of the time,
dull as the hours taken in with the crowd.
When the hurricane came
I got out of working the nightshift
and lived in the brilliant
debris of days
with no sun to mourn.
I’m always waiting around
for doomsday,
for the disaster to come,
for the death knell,
it’s the only way,
God come naturally
to take care of the Big Mistake.
It’s during the horrible moments
that I get to look up at the trees,
that I get to listen to the birds sing,
that I get to swim out into the deep
alive and looking forward
with no fear of the horizon,
no worry about the vanishing point,
that my spirit is burning,
that my soul is satiated,
that there is nothing to want
because all has been achieved
in the brutal and beautiful break
from the drudge of the good morning,
hello, how are you doing,
yes, I’ll get it done, no matter why,
no matter what for, all over again.
These disasters and doomsdays
never come often enough;
there’s always the calm after the storm,
the plague finished by the cure,
the flood waters receding,
the hope doled out for a new
and better day
where there’s no trees to look up at,
where there’s no birds to listen to,
where there’s no sand beneath the feet
just dust seconds blown away
and where the ocean is as small as a wanton
look out on the deafening waves.
____________
John Greiner is a writer and visual artist living in Queens, NY. He was educated at the New School for Social Research. Greiner’s work has appeared in Antiphon, Sand Journal, Empty Mirror, Sensitive Skin, Unarmed, Street Value and numerous other magazines. His books of poetry include Circuit (Whiskey City Press), Turnstile Burlesque (Crisis Chronicles Press) and Bodega Roses (Good Cop/Bad Cop Press). His collaborative work with photographer Carrie Crow has appeared at the Tate Liverpool, the Queens Museum and in galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Venice, Paris, Berlin and Hamburg.
Rusty Truck 