Five Poems by John Dorsey

Roanoke, Virginia, 1992

 

it was so warm

you could almost go shirtless

even at midnight

on the mini golf course

next to our hotel

 

my grandfather with his arm

around my shoulder

sweating through his windbreaker

he’d worn all the way from canada

looking out at the night sky

having perhaps his last clear vision

of an empty parking lot

before they switched off the lights

everything blurred after that

on prosthetic limbs

the little things

you can’t ever get back

when you’re no longer able

to run away

from the past.

 

Trailer Park Song, 1996

for amber

 

a young girl making men out of boys

& boys out of old men

for 50 bucks a pop

hoping for a few more minutes

of puppy love

in an abandoned trailer

 

straddling the past

on a shag carpet

with cigarette burns

up & down

her arms.

 

Poem for My Mother

 

two fathers

neither of them any good

one mother dead

with four small children

at an age when most millennials

are still using youth

as an excuse

for everything

left unsaid

& the other held back

from a wider world

that would’ve loved her

with a cigarette burning

going no further

than the front yard.

 

A Funeral in Buffalo

for nathael stolte

 

the first time we met

we gorged ourselves

on $5 Chinese food

down the street

from the bus station

& i waited in a parked car

while you went to a funeral

for an old high school friend

from your squatter days

who had overdosed

on sickness

 

& later that night

a dark haired girl

held your hand

sitting in some mobbed up dive

with shitty chicken fingers

where for a few moments

you seemed forever young.

 

Matthew Haines & the House Special

 

one jug of cheap red wine

somehow improves your driving

a young girl twists her hair with her finger

as she attempts to take our order

sliding into the booth to talk to you

& losing her job

by the time the local diner

closes for the night

 

maybe she needed her tips

to help her mother

keep the lights on

maybe she has a younger brother

or sister to feed

either way her high school sweater

& the glitter on her fingernails seems fresh

at an age where everything

feels uncertain

you reach for her phone

inserting your number

& your intentions

are clear.

John Dorsey lived for several years in Toledo, Ohio. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Teaching the Dead to Sing: The Outlaw's Prayer (Rose of Sharon Press, 2006), Sodomy is a City in New Jersey (American Mettle Books, 2010), Tombstone Factory, (Epic Rites Press, 2013), Appalachian Frankenstein (GTK Press, 2015) Being the Fire (Tangerine Press, 2016) and Shoot the Messenger (Red Flag Poetry, 2017),Your Daughter's Country (Blue Horse Press, 2019), Which Way to the River: Selected Poems 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), and Afterlife Karaoke (Crisis Chronicles, 2021). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Stanley Hanks Memorial Poetry Prize. He was the winner of the 2019 Terri Award given out at the Poetry Rendezvous. He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.