John Dorsey

City of Dead Parking Meters, with Apologies to Martin Espada

all any of us really want is more time
so we try to put a quarter in
but it just won’t budge
& everyone is moving too fast
to claim or even care about
the bodies of the dead
or the old man playing guitar
across the street
& the only thing i can think about
is whether he is getting skin cancer
at that very moment
eating both of our brains
under ball caps
attempting to hide
from the sun
when i should be feeling joy
where the pavement is littered with stars
& the vinyl shop on the corner
is the closest thing to heaven
where you can almost hear
lou reed laughing
in the distance
along the rough & tender edges of del mar blvd
as i try to translate
the tattoos on the bruised knees
of a young waitress
but it’s no use
the old man is gone
the sun is gone
love is a dead language here
on a thursday afternoon
cancer hangs from the leaves of trees
refusing to retreat into the past
& i have run out of quarters
to shake from the pockets of the smiling dead
& they won’t work here anyway
not now
maybe in the next life.

Boombox Billy on the Day the Music Died

a young guy in a black hat
walks down the county route
in his own little world
in my mind
carrying a boombox
over his head
like john cusack addicted to meth
but really it’s a transistor radio
he found in a burned out trailer
at the foot of the river
where he splashed some water on his face
& came back holy
with an eternally youthful glow
his singing voice more like a scream set to music
i imagine him thinking about
the day buddy holly fell from the sky
like the prodigal son of icarus
but he’s more likely listening to christian rock
or an ac/dc cover band playing oldies or christian rock
because that’s all we can pick up out here
& ritchie valens
& the big bopper
don’t even show up on the dial anymore
he walks down this road
every later summer day just searching
for a time when we were all young forever
when flowers grew up over top of bones
thinking about a place
where the bodies of songbirds
were never found.

Poem for the Nicolas Cage Super Fan at the Ellis Fischel Cancer Center

we weren’t meant
to sit in waiting rooms
in paper masks

but once you make it through the zombie apocalypse
rooms like this are all that’s left
a pale young girl
not even old enough to drive
has medical bracelets on up to her elbows
& a single tattoo of a rose
half visible on her upper shoulder

she prays for a fiery car crash
or some light hand to hand combat
while jumping out of a plane
that’s running out of gas
that she calls her body
anything exciting enough
to wake her from the stupor
of her medication
as she talks to me about nic cage
for at least ten minutes

maybe this conversation
has been going on for centuries
we all pray to our own gods
vampires & holy men

sometimes you have to let out a scream
in the middle of the night
because it just feels right
shaking the cancer from your skin

sometimes you have to imagine
what nic cage would do in this situation
& i think my god will punch your god right in the face
because sometimes
that feels right too.

 

John Dorsey is the former poet laureate of Belle, Missouri and the author of Pocatello Wildflower. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.