BY JOHN GREY
Copyright is held by the author.
We hung out at the edge
of beauty’s unfenced field,
that glossy gathering,
where every face bore
the polish of wealth.
Wine buffed up our egos,
spouted tales of imagined conquest,
each glass a braggart,
each swallow a lie
we couldn’t wait to tell.
Brains weren’t currency in that room.
So we tucked ours behind the folds
of loud shirts and louder laughs,
hid the plainness in repetition:
an echo chamber of our own making.
The bottle did its duty,
filled our sails,
lifted our volume,
until our chatter clanged
across the monied calm.
Rejection didn’t take long:
one collective turn of heads,
a silent recoil,
and a great crushing sound
like ambition being trod on.
It was time to leave.
Too soaked in Shiraz
to know we’d been shunned,
we staggered into midnight,
guts full of bravado and cheap bravura.
But morning always gets the last say —
with its cruel sunlight,
its sobering breath,
our muttered “no big deal”
the biggest deal of all.
***
John Grey is an Australian poet, U.S. resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, Bittersweet, Subject Matters and Between Two Fires are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, Writer’s Block and Trampoline.
