Where I'm At

Where I'm at

That black summer of 1995
It was the year
Of no happy ending
22 years later
And it still puts me into
A very dark cold place.

An eternal emptiness
Where I don't dare smile
Lest someone arrive
To take that away again.

This is not a pretty place,
or life
I laugh from sheer madness
I suspect.

Perhaps I hide the madness well?
Anyway, you know me
The person I stand outside in.

In this mask
This brave face hiding
Nervous dust.

It was the year that put me...
Here.
Where I am aware,
Kind of late, to my sorrow.

Loved ones and music
is what matters
Nothing else really matters.

My art will survive me
If there is a here left
After the smoke and fire
Has cleared..

Art is our bid for immortality
We must face death
With courage and curiosity.

Notes from underground
From an
Undiscovered country.

To be honest
Never had the courage
To write it down
But the time has come
I need to tell my story
What really happened.

On June 25 1995
The first day
my heart was sent
To Exile.

-Will Dockery

Exile

Exile

Christmas morning 1995
about six months
into exile
still some hope
and a whole lot of love.

Delivery of presents
Santa myth trashed
for my children
not my design
against my will.

Got the okay to stop by
I step in from another world
bearing gifts
smiles to mask
my smashed heart.

Memory and dreams
this may pass
but the final statement
the final fuck off gesture
to me.

Proof that I was no longer real
I no longer belonged
was not that
I didn't get a gift
not a single one.

But when I asked her
she said she had
given him a shirt.

Black day
December 25 1995
I sucked it up
smiled at the kids
with holiday toys
tried to hide
my nightmare of pain.

Sat in my old spot
north side if the sofa
smiled a goodbye
and walked away into the bog
the moor
to Shadowville,
already dead inside
never to return.

-Will Dockery

Star Child Memory

Star Child Memory

Snapshot of a moment
an outdoor poetry reading
in early Spring 1996.
Glimmering stars
and looming moon
through the gloom.

Passing through
in that cavern
of concrete, glass and brick
off Broadway.
I join the poetry reading
already in progress.

There's a hush in the air
as we approach.
Star Child and her friends
standing with me
on the sidewalk.

Glimmering stars above us
Springtime
constellations.
Poets sit in a circle
in the alley
behind Bazaar Earth.

In those early days
so late in the game.

But I couldn't remain
back then
I had to keep on moving.
I told them they couldn't get
high enough
to float with me.

Star Child twinkled and tweaked
skipping by me
in that spangled night.
Stopping at the parking meter
waving goodbye.

-Will Dockery

Seminole Avenue (Slight Return)

Seminole Avenue (Slight Return)

I was walking down Seminole Avenue
admiring the octagon shaped slabs of concrete.
I felt the words that called me away.
Seeing mostly strangers
until I saw that red haired girl
smiling at me.

-Will Dockery (1981)

Seminole Avenue

Seminole Avenue

Plucked in the green
by the brook of silverly water.
I see the recreation in progress
and the interest of thieves.
I feel the words
they call me away.
Seeing mostly strangers
but there was that red haired girl
with dirty feet
and her incredibly lanky legs.
I was walking down Seminole Avenue
admiring the octagon shaped
slabs of concrete.

-Will Dockery (1981)

Galatea

Galatea

Longing here in the rain
for the blood of Christ
to flow in my veins.
Somehow I suspect that it doesn't.
I'm lost
and I pray I can escape.
Galatea is gone
does she know what I must do
is this why she is gone?

-Will Dockery (1980)

Problems at Salisbury Fair

Problems at Salisbury Fair

Playing a gambit
but still playing it straight.
Sent a fluff-girl downstairs
shaking her pompadour.
Silver badged shadow boxing lady cop,
she carries a gun.
She sits at the piano with a song
tight as a nun.
Clicking her flashlight
working old mimeograph.
We face our reflections
in the city of fishbowls.
Smoking with a journalist
over by the window.
Drinking strange mead
hesitates on delivery.
Working underground
flim-flaming in the fog.
Picking minds
for breakfast couplets.
Shakes her Dickinson hair
Strolling by Salisbury Fair.

Crabbed picture reflects
as she inspects herself.
Winter is rugged
on the frail apple-tree.
Wrinkled man in a snow cap
hip shaking
through Spanish Moss.

She quietly turns and runs,
from a silly basement bar.
Too much fun, it was mostly a waste.
Helped her stagger to her trailer
after drinking beer and sniffing paste.
Some of this and a lot of that
she shakes her tits with tats.
Grinning from the stage
with her over sized dentures.
Clicked her door to the night
shutting out new adventures.
Tight lipped little loser
stapling his chapbooks.
Shakes her Dickinson hair
Strolling by Salisbury Fair.

Clicked his flashlight
asked was it him or them.
Saw the bloody handprint
no flatlander expectations.
One gone before she was born
the other never born at all
they only exist because
she remembers them.

He's wound tight
by she who intoxicates.
The stone bag empty,
Sampson follows the thunder.
Press her hands back
she's flat on her back again.
Kiss the space
her face is open wide.
Stars sparkle bittersweet,
dripping from
these bearded lips.
Boss burbled gobbledegook
chewing treacled tobacco.
He feeds on her mind like a vulture
as she cries out jargon.
Shakes her Dickinson hair

Strolling by Salisbury Fair.
-Will Dockery