by John Grey

Thunder is just the shout and stumble of clouds.
Lightning’s nothing but a cigarette being lit
on the other side of the world.
The weather is love. Its isobars leave behind
the storms of the world.
When was there ever a nimbus heart?
What strikes twice, and then a third, and then a fourth time
if not this entwined beating?
There’s people trembling in their houses,
thinking they won’t survive this time.
Their afternoon is packed with the sky’s treason.
Ours is a subliminal laugh at this rake’s progress
through the punch-drunk heavens.
It may be dark as pitch to the others
but it’s dawn already here.
Their timbers may rumble like God’s truth
but we roll, we rock, as only touch knows how.
Thunder is the cry of the repressed.
Lightning cuts its unholy path across the dark plains
of the unfeeling.
The weather is renewed in our faces.
It’s a feathering breeze, a glistening cool embedded in your soul.
Suddenly all goes dark. A neighbor’s voices shrieks,
“We’ve lost the power.”
Thankfully, we’ve found the power.

Australian born poet and US resident since late seventies, John Grey works as financial systems analyst. He has recently been published in Slant, Briar Cliff Review, and Albatross with work upcoming in Poem, Cider Press Review and The Evansville Review.