Opera Positions

Opera Positions

This is a moving studio
motion
you're independent.

I'm holed up with Search Boy again
sniffing the heroine.

From the room
where Bodeen is sleeping
to a hundred year old
building downtown
a mathematical structure.

Jack Burlington
in his land of crack head hos
his holy mass.

Touches of exile
in this squalid box
brandishing browdsword.

Locked away
at the edge of the world
sealed on a cliff.

Tomorrow always closing in
shut down future.

Opera positions
in the front seat
formalities
forward.

Doc Pendleton
running on empty
pacing
placing
fleeing
accelerating,
vacant broadcast.

Seeing what it's like
to be old again
aged vision
youth drugs played out.

A date with an empathetic expanse
like the portrait of Dorian Grey.

Silhouette shadow lady
your tender river hands.

He remembered the harmonicas of Ed Gray
The years of this separation.

I feel green like Jack Midnight
The freedom
the crushing loneliness of freedom.

Tomorrow closing in again
never get blessed with a memory lapse.

Opera positions
in the front seat
we've lost the passion.

Studio house with no lights
concubine by candle light.

Stacks of art books
and furniture
sex sleep.

Having a bad day in a bad year
mischief in the neighborhood
generation of the Hood.

Sinister figures in the paintings
she's devious
her nose is covered.

Sinister friends breaking and entering
lap dance pirouette.

This school
is destroying my poetry
and the cranking power
of this honky-tonk.

Or is it just boxing it in
with discipline
feeling like a punch drunk lumberjack.

I'm not doing words of some rich soap opera
some blue velvet candybox
I'm right here in the streets.

-Will Dockery (1997)