DUMPED FROM SPINNING SHIP
by John Grey

Aaron Sheldon                                           



I was 10th rock from the 15th sun,

moonglazed and black-hole beat-up,

meteorite shell-shocked and

mortared to semi-oblivion by solar flares;

I was spinning through universal hell-hole,

stomach churning, eyes fogging, brains on scramble;

my blood was like a homing pigeon

lost on the way back to my heart

and chilling by the moment;

my nerves lashed out at the bone-headed heaven

that refused this rolling, spiraling man admittance.


I was bleep bleep on memory's radar,

solar skid-mark on the slippery floor of time;

oxygen was choking the life out of me,

its winds wailing against my lungs

storms spitting against the glass

of my space suit;

if my hand could have reached my throat

and if nothingness was a knife

I would have slashed my jugular;


Sure, I was learning what it was like

to live without borders, to excuse

distance its light years,

conversation, its response;

wherever I put my foot down,

there was nothing but nightmare

and my head spun without body for anchor;

I didn't turn to God

for how could I pray

with the needle of my soul

screaming zero.







John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Big Muddy and Sanskrit with work upcoming in South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, Owen Wister Review and Louisiana Literature. John previously appeared in Chrome Baby 19.