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Farewell

JOHN GREY
It is the time to be
without sight of you,
for the blaze in my brain
to simmer down,
cook just enough tears
to blanket my eyes.

I'll restrain my heart
with force if I have to.
I'll be a dutiful gangster
and take my memories for a ride.

It is the time to
move my whole camp
to another county,
find new quarters,
perfect the silence around me.
And I will learn to play

the glockenspiel,
join the local branch
of the Theosophical Society,
keep a cricket in a jar
--
anything, so as not to
see myself as a failure.


A brief farewell
will begin the process.
It's a combination
of caring and a slap in the face.
There has never been another word like it.
Only hello comes close.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Dunes Review, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Thin Air, Dalhousie Review and failbetter.
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