swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

in the narrows
John Greiner

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To Batter the Dry Earth

Morning is dusty
After the dance,
Too many bare feet
Kicking up dirt.

The bullets that come our way
Are looking for a good night’s rest.
The corpses that we will become
Are not worth a second glance.

Once we were all Nureyev
Before his bad end.
No matter how fleet footed
No one does much better.

It is for the best to batter
The dry earth with bare feet.

Tip the Edge

Sky parted from the sea so snotty
in its green.
We set sail with our legs lost
To the land while playing at piracy.
On the ocean of peace,
Beneath Iphigenia’s sheen and scream
We rave.
There are shores
And sureties
To be got from being lost
from sight.
There’s no compass
That has gone beyond the edge
Of the well rounded world,
But we are mightier men
Longing for lines straight
that let off.
I’ll see you no more
In the narrows
and shallow straights
So easy to step on.
The wind charms with its screech.
To tip the edge is not to sink
And over will not pull under.
We were always good to go
And at last it’s good to be gone.

Trophy Head

The head of the angel hung on the wall.
Everyone was happy with the hunt
It was a good place to be after a day out
in the wilderness,
But the waitresses weren’t quick to come
around
When we sitters started getting rudimentary.

There was a sadness about the ladies;
They talked about the cities
Where the tips were better,
but nothing else.

The braver women spoke of London.
I hadn’t been there in years.
They said it wasn’t much better than here.

The Master of Ceremonies regaled me
With tales of his sleep in Leicester Square.
I said that I had done much the same
After jumping off of the train at 14th Street
Too late in the night to make it morning.

In the end we both woke up to be stuttering here,
So far from a Mumbai that was once and never Bombay.

There’s something so much better in being
on the sidelines.
Once the world is seen in full flight
From an angle of uncertainty
In the center of things
There’s nothing left but to want a trophy head
To hang on the wall sacred to all
But the mortuary men.

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John Greiner is a poet, playwright, short fiction writer and visual artist who lives in New York City. Greiner’s collections of poetry include Circuit (Whiskey City Press, 2020), Turnstile Burlesque (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2017), The Laundrymen (Wandering Head Press, 2016), Bodega Roses (Good Cop/Bad Cop Press, 2014), Modulation Age (Wandering Head Press, 2012), Shooting Side Glances (ISMs Press, 2011) and Relics From a Hell’s Kitchen Pawn Shop (Ronin Press, 2010). Greiner’s plays have been produced in New York City, Chicago and Gloucester, Massachusetts. His work in décollage is a motion towards a more transcendent poetic language and his collaborative pieces with photographer Carrie Crow has been shown in galleries, museums and public spaces in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Venice, Hamburg and Berlin.

Greiner’s latest collection of poetry  In An Attic Palace Beneath a Slaughtered Sky
is out on Arteidolia Press. →