All Parties in the Matter of Joan Crawford vs Bette Davis Please Step Forward
Enright and Hardshaw Electrics Ltd -
A play in four acts;
that was my first (and last) taste of Broadway.
It wasn't that good a play,
it had nothing to do with electricity
not Mr. Enright, nor Señorita Hardshaw,
she recently widowed
by a horse and cart flattening the Spanish ambassador,
who died
four days later from complications
arising from a ruptured bladder.
No, I didn't make it on Broadway.
Five months later I appeared
in my own dream as bass-player in a trash-metal band
playing Maynooth summer festival, 1993.
There I met
Joan Crawford on her way to pick a fight with Bette Davis.
I said to Joan
if she would like to star in my play
as Señorita Hardshaw, she said
hey Romeo, wasn’t your name Maguire
last time I pistol-whipped you?
- then I woke up
as the rocker next door tuned-up
his bass,
frightening Joan away.
Bette Davis took little time
gatecrashing my next dream
as I stepped forward,
the judge making an announcement
about all parties
in the matter of Joan Crawford vs Bette Davis
The Lesser-Known Presidential Assassinations
For Alyssa Trivett
I
was born with lots of things across my hands,
snowflakes,
blood,
water
from the Rio Grande.
Nothing
compromised the science
of
each individual component,
snow-drifts
grew larger,
started
a family,
moved
north, blocking tin-can Ford trucks on freeways.
The
blood I took,
I
added it to the bones from lesser-read pages in the Holy Book,
Adam
had sisters, brothers, no-one spoke of,
Eve
was married twice before.
The
lesser-known presidential assassinations spring-up
from
tributaries of the Rio Grande,
William
McKinley -
A
good Protestant
County
Antrim name
with
sizzling stagecoach wheels
in
thickened rains - gives church-yard
its
Sunday chatter.
James
Garfield is mentioned in archives
where
cigars, brandy
and
the Witherspoon family
of
New England make generous donations
to
rebuild our church-hall blown down
in
the winds and rains of 1908.
I
was born with lots of things across my hands,
it's
a map that remains,
its
fauna blotchy
like
dead animals hunting near a desert dirt-track
mutes
and blind-folk
were
too terrified to rub with tar.
This
is the word of someone's Lord;
Praise
Be
There's Sadness in the Man From Los Olivos
Behind
me -
ocher
brick jigsaws
of
cars with plain clothes detectives,
weekends
of warm air
that
drags a city's light
from
jumbo jets
I
merge from;
patterns
of squealing glass
and
jazz LPs nurse their wounds like babies
sleeping
in pork-pie hats.
The
glass-fronts of general stores scream
when
I touch them. I really don’t know where I can run to
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.
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