The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by George Stratigakis

GRASS FOR SHEEP

She asks me to cut the grass

and has distant and dark glassy eyes.

She is from Venus, now I know. All I

can think of is Frost and his wall

and why must it be cut

—it's not yet overgrown but an inch—

so with a Keatsian wild surmise

I declare: "Let nature grow."

What I mean is, let it have a go;

it is not yet a bother 

and I for one am dying to know    

how the dandelions will loom

over the lawn's meek mass

watchtower-stalks of radiant yellow.

A CONVERSATION WITH HISTORY

Maybe you found History

comfortably napping on your couch

and a delicate frown nudged a chord within.

But me, I see him turbaned

charging the walls at Istanbul

his yataghan held high; and

a child, eyes bulging  

seeing nothing

save a soldier-father

blankly in convoy driven by.

Have your chat with the Queen

or go to the convenience store for milk and cookies; 

I smell the farmer's plow-furled soil 

damply sheen and earthen tangy

while in the boundary ditch unseen

— like Icarus in Breughel's vision —

a wife locks jaws and whimper-grunts

bloodily birthing her tenth.

Then with deliberate and tremulous moves   

she tears her faded charcoal dress 

and bundles the newborn for our walk to town.