Himalayas by John Greiner

There's no clean view
when you get this high.
    It's the wilds
with raunchy rain clouds
that leave you longing
for the shower
at the last remaining Y
    on the downtown
street that went elegant.
The sky's scraping
the ground and it's easy
to guess who's not going
to make it around the corner.
In the playground
there's a slide
of the eyes
catching the ups to down.
    The game
always goes that way.
Don't ever think
there's going to be
    a pull out
and spin into reverse.
There's no straight line
to head up to a clean
call, clear of the sing
        song crash;
the kind of bang up
that every sweet mama puts the kids
to sleep with when it's bedtime.
I've got to walk
to the top of the hill everyday
and I'm the only one who's
    willing to call
it a mountain.

John Greiner is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer living in Queens, NY. He was educated at the New School for Social Research.  Greiner's work has appeared in Sand, Empty Mirror, Sensitive Skin, Unarmed, Street Valueand numerous other magazines. His chapbooks, broadsides and collections of poetry and short stories includeTurnstile 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).