Four Fantastic Poems by John Doyle

 

U.S.A. 1980

 

James Blood Ulmer's funky jazz

prays to a red-brick sidestreet

where smoke speaks in haggard tongues,

Cadillacs - rolling past. There are cigarette-voiced men inside,

hats like temples that shield their faith;

this is the word of John Coltrane - can I have an amen?

Jake and Elwood and Sister Aretha

spin on diner seats

like the records Van Morrison played decades away,

time for cool-crisp rain crackling like bacon on beautiful concrete,

time for tv, Ranger Smith and Squiddly Diddly, who gave me the kiss of life today.

Teddy turned his lips from the television screen an hour later

and killed his daddy's dream.

America said just enough in its post-mortem,

Fatso in Hawaii took out the bill of rights,

bleached it in venom

 

 

The Shark

 

Small-town dreamers huddle like leeches around this

 

boy, soft-ball captain, suit poured on him, all 140 or so pounds;

 

His pop had problems back in '85,

 

though that waterfall ran dry,

 

I guess he's lucky to be alive;

 

each time I reach out, he's reaching somewhere else,

 

fixing his dicky bow, flaring his nostrils;

 

The Shark, they call him - laughing,

 

the pride of Hicksville ready to strike;

 

His mom avoids me most days,

 

unless it's a funeral,

 

or the seamstresses she runs to decided to run away;

 

Nor was Harriet Olsen available today.

 

In his brother's crusades

 

mats are kicked away from the west,

 

allegiance to one God,

 

one God alone,

 

like he’s Jesus' own stepdad, immortal in this creeping flesh.

 

I call up Captain Quint

 

on Thursday -

 

he says he’s got better ones to fry

 

 

Song for Jon-Erik Hexum

 

Bleached-smells turn to gold-dust’s vomit

and dressing

gowns

 

sweep

sorrow

from an endless apology of

 

bed-pan floors.

On floors where nurses talk of high-school full-backs

from mid-west towns where grass and wheat grows rib-cage high

 

I dream with you, hold your hand.

The handsome boys know jack-shit about anything life sends their way,

God’s greatest song

 

is coming to its coda in this one,

the fragments piecing broken life back

together

 

 

Song for Gaetano Scirea

 

A latter-day haircut tight and creeping

like a dream that takes a wrong turn

 

into Dante's smoke and mirrors,

a short back and sides tell me that dream's

 

weaving through a back-street in Turin,

and we can all begin,

 

hovering like a matador down that wing,

the barbers of death like a moon bleeding out its stars,

 

a September song

with its hair always long

John Doyle is from County Kildare in Ireland. He returned to writing poetry in February 2015 after a gap of nearly 7 years. Since then he's had 6 poetry collections published, with a 7th collection, "Isolated Incidents" due to be released by Pski's Porch in Summer 2021.