(Note: We are pleased to publish the return of John Grey over the next four days. We feel that pleased will be the consensus-LA)

The wind was a wild jouster
taking on my unarmed house.
Blow after blow, thudded the walls,
shook up the foundations.

But, but bent into my book,
I continued unafraid
Forgive my pun,
but the novel blew me away.

The house was shouting
but I wasn’t hearing.
All the lights flickered.
And that I did notice.

But I turned the pages,
read top to bottom,
as secure in my coziness
as the flapping roof was not.

That storm whipped and raged
and yet my concentration
was unscratched,
my immersion kept its scalp.

In the ruins of suburbia,
I was far away.
What happened all around
failed to find me at its center.

John Grey

(header by Adam Kluger)