by John Grey 

Alarm clock's rattling like crazy
and I'm thinking of all the things
that clatter could be.
So many loud years of being in this family.
All of the worst bits of my job,
jumbled together, converted into white noise.
Maybe the screams of all you have to kill
so love can survive.
I hit the silencer
and figure I will sleep some more
but instead I lie there thinking.
What's this damn silence
but what it would feel like to
be from nothing, to connect to nothing.
Or maybe how an empty wallet would sound
if I had no work to complain about.
Could be it's what love replaces,
what life would revert to without it,
not a desperation exactly,
but the survival of the drabbest,
the most meaningless of quiet.
I struggle slowly out of the bed,
drawn toward the kitchen
where my wife makes breakfast.
All the way down the stairs,
I hear the sounds she makes
battling the sounds she wouldn't make
if she weren't there.

 

 

John Grey is an Australian born poet, playwright, musician. Latest book is “What Else Is There” from Main Street Rag. Recently in Cape Rock, Weber Studies, Writers Bloc and the Connecticut Review.