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VANTAGE POINT
by John Grey
In a narrow side street,
down below my second-floor apartment,
the routes by which
the bogeymen, demons,
grotesqueries and monstrosities
enter the inner city,
come together
in a tight space,
of muted light,
and no other foot traffic.
Tonight,
I expect, once more,
to take up my window vantage point,
watch, in both fascination and terror,
as they resume old feuds,
attack each other violently,
ripping and gouging,
biting and slashing,
in one great battle-fest
of torn skin, fur chunks,
flying eyeballs
and cannons of blood.
But, this night,
their usual growls
are merely murmurs.
Their lashing out
is no more than shoulder taps.
And those grim faces,
normally so intent
on menacing each other,
look upward.
One long scaly finger
emerges from the cloak
of some grizzle-faced ghoul.
It points directly at me.
John Grey is
an Australian poet, U.S. resident, recently published in New World Writing,
North Dakota Quarterly, and Tenth Muse. Latest books, Between Two Fires,
Covert, and Memory Outside the Head, are available through Amazon. Work
upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Birmingham Arts Journal, La Presa,
and Shot Glass Journal.
KJ Hannah Greenberg is eclectic.
She’s played oboe, participated in martial arts, learned basket weaving, and
studied Middle Eastern dancing. What’s more, she’s a certified herbalist, and
an AP College Board-authorized teacher of calculus. Her creative efforts
have been nominated once for The Best of the Net in poetry, once for The Best
of the Net in art, three times for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for poetry,
once for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for fiction, once for the Million
Writers Award for fiction, and once for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the
Art of the Essay. To boot, Hannah’s had more than forty-five books published
and has served as an editor for several literary journals. Check
out her latest short fiction collection, An Orbit of Chairs: https://www.amazon.com/Orbit-Chairs-KJ-Hannah-Greenberg/dp/B0CWMMM73T Within its
pages are two tales originally published at Yellow Mama: "Alive Another
Day" and "Light Notes."
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