Synkroniciti is delighted to welcome poet and writer John Grey with “Jack, the Un-Giant Killer,” a fascinating meditation on how time and age erode the grand expectations of our childhood, replacing mythic quests with the quiet tasks of daily life. After surviving a tempestuous youth, lowered personal expectations conceal a sense of purpose and individuation derived not from fulfilling mythic potential, but from persistence and daily toil.
“Demons are out there / somewhere unvanquished. / But a leaking tap was fixed. / A loose shingle was nailed firm. / Trash was taken out.”
In these lines, the mythic dissolves into the domestic, yet the domestic becomes mythic in its own right. Grey acknowledges that the “grand old days” were never truly grand, and yet there lingers a wistfulness for the irrepressible chutzpah of boyhood. The poem’s tone communicates the dignity of manhood without masculine bravado, transmuting fairy-tale imagery into everyday strength. The high-flying boy has become a reliable man.
Read “Jack, the Un-Giant Killer” in Synkroniciti’s Expectations, Vol. 8, No. 2, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
John Grey is Australian born, US resident short story writer, poet, playwright, musician. Has been published in numerous magazines including Weird Tales, Amazing Adventures, Christian Science Monitor, Greensboro Poetry Review, Poem, Agni, Poet Lore and Journal Of The American Medical Association. His latest books are Bittersweet, Between Two Fires and Covert, available through Amazon. He has had plays produced in Los Angeles and off-off Broadway in New York and was winner of Rhysling Award for short genre poetry in 1999.