Poetry by Greg Clary

                          ​Nicolas Henderson CC



Conundrum

What do you say when
the toughest guy you know,
Chalk Eye,
cries at your kitchen table?

Offer an encouraging word?
An arm around the shoulder?
A drink of whiskey?
But no advice. Gawd, no advice.

Then like a swift, black cloud
uncovering the moon,
the moment passes.
Grim gives way to grin.

“Remember the time when we
rolled that old Corvair
and walked home in the snow
to your Mamaw’s house?”

This is how ends and beginnings
end and begin.

​

​

Brush With Danger

She spotted me
before I saw her with
that Cheshire Cat grin,
whiskey in hand, moving in her
casual, easy, sashay.

“Boy, if we’d ‘a stayed naked
we might ‘a had a chance.
But you had a bug up your ass.
Other things to do.”

“I did and I did.
You were hard to quit with
your fearlessness. Your truth.
Your cathead biscuits.”

​

Greg Clary is Professor Emeritus of Rehab and Human Services at Clarion University, Clarion PA.
His photographs have been published in The Sun Magazine, Looking at Appalachia, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, The Watershed Journal, Hole in the Head Review, Dark Horse, North/South Appalachia, The Bridge Literary Arts Journal, Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel Journal, Trailer Park Quarterly, Winedrunk Sidewalk, and Avant Appal(achia).

His writing and poems have appeared in The Rye Whiskey Review, The Watershed Journal, The Bridge Literary Arts Journal, Northern Appalachia Review, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Trailer Park Quarterly, Rusty Truck, Waccama Journal, and North/South Appalachia: Poetry and Art, Vol 1.
​
He was born and raised in Turkey Creek, West Virginia, and now resides in northwestern Pennsylvania.

---