The Hero

No one’s ever

wrote about a

grape that saves the world.

Sure, in the form of

pinot noir it brings me

joy. Though this

will hardly suffice.

 

Due to Jesus’

Thursday lamb, it’s gifted

us with chalice, in memory,

shed for you. Carrots

couldn’t cut it.

 

It’s adept to

gag a villain if

it ever comes to that—

kerplunking down

a gullet. Bond has

turned his nose

and stuck to bullets.

 

A bunch is Russian

Roulette. Which is seeded?

Which is not? Which is sweet

or tart?

 

Mother said if

I swallowed a Muscat’s

pip, I’d have fruit inside

my stomach for the

rest of my life.

Such is a branch’s

clout. Watch it lead the way

& scale the stars.

 

Grapes have birthed

their reign from leafed

adherence. The turn &

twist of twigs. Confluent

little creeks. Cleaving little

comrades. All for all

& one for one. Now I finally

get it. Love is the vigour

to hold.

 

Even tempests

need the time to

catch their breath. It is then

that we shall revel.

We’ve never tried to

toast in September

gales.

 

I think my

Reverend drinks

and I don’t blame her.

Says Christ

depicts a vine

and not a gun.

Green & garnet

globes out in the

yonder. Barrels grace

with age. Pregnant

with salvation.

 

MAGA troll

her daily. The Bishop

cups his ears. He chucked

his cassock once

in a fit of nerves. Reminded

him of blood. A cape without

a sky

and none to beckon.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

July 10, 2026

photo: Norse Creative

Sister Asha

has not been naked

since her birth.

That’s not to say

she bathes in her

chador. But the bubbles

are a screen of

air & water.

And they alone

are worthy. From such

we’re gifted life.

 

That’s not to

say a zephyr

hasn’t whiffed

her tawny skin.

That the moth

has never ventured

to her breasts.

For this is why

they rest in

white apparel.

 

A nun from

down the road

will pass her by. Glossed

in an obsidian

sentry. Slowly going

umber from the sun.

Says Christ

is not Allah’s.

 

Both will dream

of doves.

Both will tread in

glory. For the earth

will preserve their

bones. And nothing’s

as resplendent as

the perished. For where

is our partition

not of flesh?

 

Reveal which skull has

cursed you.

The hand which

casted cobble. The orbs that

looked away

when you approached,

forging the phantom

flight 

of a mourning plume.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

July 9, 2026

photo: chador official 

The Wall, or A Humdrum Lesson in Cacti

You’ve one-upped

my joke on

boredom. And now my smirk

has been exfoliated

from my face.

 

Sure, you’d rather watch the

paint—not to dry

 

but to chip and

spall then plummet—

like a corn flake

to a bowl.

 

We agree it was

the dullest cereal around

back in the day.

Cheap because we

snoozed right through

our breakfast—while our dad

was docked an hour

for being late.

 

Grass will grow

a snippet every morning.

And the swallows

swoop to visit.

 

Glidden? It takes its

time to reach

aridity—but the worst is even

better—they’ve made it

too damn good.

Lasts a quarter-

century—the listless

clerk will tell us. But

that’s merely its

genesis:

 

for your science friend has prattled

it takes seven million

years to complete the receding

it undertakes. That’s at least three-plus

trillion yawns. Longer than

glacial melt. Slower than parting

plates. I imagine by then

the ennui you’re ducking out of

 

could hardly be as bad as

that: Grandma’s clock that

grates with every tic.

Uncle mumbling

the stocks from ’92.

The neighbour

sighing yep upon the couch

that has no pattern.

 

And you with the family

Vulgate, perusing the Book of

Numbers, while Newman’s

Calculus awaits in

the batter’s box, your sweat

like a seeping

saguaro in endless  

sand. And it’s this, you’ll boast,

that’s funny. So goddamn,

motherfucking funny.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

July 8, 2026

photo: Antonio Guillem / Dreamstime 

Enigma

I gift you

a book of crosswords—

with all of the answers

filled by a fountain

pen.

 

You deride me for

frugality, for the gall

of the Sally Ann,

the time

I gave a jigsaw,

bereft of its final piece.

You spent ninety

days for naught;

a fossil

in the stratum

sans a bone.

 

But please don’t

misconstrue—they’re simply not

the same. Cogitate

the squares—blacked out like

the houses in the blitz,

unwilling to yield what’s

hid, a mother &

her bairns

behind a curtain;

 

a doctor sawing an

arm replete with

shrapnel, a dog

beside the bed

in spite of germs;

or a pair of smitten

teens, their faith that

 

the unsaid

will never divulge

his darkest secrets,

regardless how he’s held

beneath the lamp,

hanging by his ankles

on a hook, mum on

where is love

and where she’s not,

the blueprint of her

lair, the letters of her

sacred nom de guerre.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

July 7, 2026

Photo: Yong hian Lim / Dreamstime 

The Sensei

When you’re a

poet, you never know

which strophe will be your last.

It could’ve been this—

had that stroke I’ve

always dreaded

slapped me silly.

 

They say you slur

your final words

when it has hit you:

see shells shesells up

by the shesore.

I practice it again &

again. Flunking to

pivot my cheek.

 

Your body dies a minute

before your brain. What to think

of those final sixty

seconds—and how do you

tabulate time? By the scansion

of the lines?

 

No one’s ever scribed

a true haiku. That

much I know. If I had

an instant left, I wouldn’t

say a peep about a

frog. Seriously—

you’re gonna squander

that final moment

on some leap among the lilies?

Describe its failing plop?

Then you wonder why

they never speak of Bashō

anymore. Exhaling his

closing breath, carbon

more important than a

tercet. The ripple on

the pond

is the pond.

 

My child

soaks her feet

among the tadpoles.

Doesn’t wince in

mud & slime.

Sees a wart as

as a bulge of beauty.

 

She has nothing

left to learn.

 

  

 

Andreas Gripp

July 5, 2026

Photo: Instants / Getty Images

The Gardener

The neighbour calls

me Black Thumb.

If you saw my drooping

zinnias

you’d know why.

 

She’s never known

carnations to go charcoal

after rain. I call my roses

thorns because that’s all

they really are. Miracle-Gro’s

a charlatan with a ferret

beneath his hat. He might

as well be a mortician.

 

The vines upon the bricks

are pretzeled bones—

they’ve never held a leaf in

all their life. No one mistakes

my Ivy for Cambridge U.

Everything reeks of death.

Even the rats have fled.

 

Begonias beg for

water. I flood them like some

raging, Noachian God.

The marigolds would settle

for yellow. They’re butter

that’s spent a month in the

Mojave.

 

The foxglove is a mitten

on a shrew. The fungi

stay away. They know to

cross my fence is

suicide. Mushrooms

aren’t worth it.

 

The irises are blind.

Sunflowers have no petals—

and no one’s been around

for loves-me-not.

 

In fact, no one ever visits

and I don’t blame them.

The spiders spin no webs.

Each skunk has held

its nose. If my garden were a

costume, it’d be a graveyard on

the skirts of San Antone.

 

My bluebells

are kazoos in

shades of pall. The Loti

have been shunned by

Bodhisattvas—the frogs

are wilted prunes.  

 

Nellie’s Nursery

bolts their doors

whenever they see me coming.

The junipers

duck in droves. The Ferns

hide all their fingers.

 

Every living plant?

Deems me Thanatos.

Except the dandelions.

I’ve learned to leave

them be—lest they become

some haggard kitten,

their ashen teeth

 

detached from rotted gums,

carried in the current

like a jailbreak, hearing

Iqaluit’s pretty green

this time of year.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

July 4, 2026

Photo: Francesco Carta / Getty Images