MUCH ANGER, NOTHING BITING
Oh there was much anger in him.
Alter a hard day’s work,
only the foolhardy got in his way.
He slammed doors.
He stomped so hard about the house,
I feared the floors would break.
But two beers would calm him.
Then he’d fall asleep
with his dinner barely past his tonsils
on the couch most times.
His snores competed with the ads
in interrupting favorite shows.
He earned good enough money
though nothing like what his bosses took home.
And every cent was coined by blood and sweat,
muscle and backbone.
As children, we respected what we most feared.
On weekends, he fished.
When I was old enough to accompany him,
we became friends.
Back against a tree trunk,
line drilling into the water,
he was a peaceful man,
sober, willingly restrained by nature.
As he grew older, the work began to cripple him.
His rage was restricted to his insides.
The new man saved on hinges and floorboards
bin his withered face was another matter
and that beer and sleep relationship
shifted the balance toward the alcohol.
Only the fishing remained immune.
I believe he envied the tree that supported his spine.
its roots all in one place,
trunk slowly growing and spreading branches.
Nothing much ever took his hook.
But nothing much was all he asked for.
We buried a man who worked himself to death.
We live with a fisherman’s ashes.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Soundings East, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in West Trade Review, Willard and Maple and Connecticut River Review.
The Literary Forest Poetry Magazine 