Connection

Connection

Connection
look at these empty streets.
Illumination
poetics to a dark night sky.

I'm here
and I've been here before.

She's crazy
and so is that other lady.
She must slow down
be savy, do it right.

Sky poets survive
they have a joy to be alive.

Where is Paige?
she seems likely never to return.

Reflection
on into itself a million times over.
Ressurection
when the spring returns.

No more dogmatic superstittion.

Your stones are so beautiful
and the colors, unwritable.

Is the Knight able
to drink the kegs dry?

-Will Dockery (1997)

Salt Ripple

Salt Ripple

One man, one ashtray
the old man with beads paints alone.
The storm passes over
Moon Child is always with him.

Mermaid's handbag
I find my cure
near the salt water medicine.
Sanpipers dance
I watch the moves
way off Broadway.

Far away now
from the madness of erotic politics
I think I should never return.

Remain here
become pure again
among the thunderstorms and greensnakes.

The old man with beads
sings baritone in the shower.
The storms have passed over
leaving sadness, uncertainty and hope.

Ancient energy here
the moon shows up in late afternoon.
She's imitating a cloud.
Foamy egg moon we hatched from
our ancient dust and rock birth sack.

-Will Dockery (1997)

A Carload of Poets

A Carload Of Poets

A carload of poets injured on the highway
in the late afternoon.
The smell of the lumberyard pine on 280
aromatic breeze fills my car as I observe this.

Splat faeries scattered
little bloody notebooks and pens
Mexican air conditioning shrill blasting my ears
affecting my mind with this sight.

Shrivelled red baloon in a tree
near this horrible mess of words and kids.
Bernie looked up and saw the spirit horse
wisping through over the scene.

Lady that smelled like a hospital
Tina didn't like that.
Bitchy red headed doctor
administering extra pain to the banged up poets.

Bernie McBride and Joe Senior, driver and shotgun
Tina and Wispy in the backseat originally
now arranged like fractals
in the large Elsewhere City by-pass ditch.

Nobody was injured seriously, though
too drunk on wine
rubbery flexable poets.
The regular cops said to run 'em in
the cool Alabama State Trooper said
"No, I saw a carload of dead teenagers
here once on this spot. Thank God they're alive..."

-Will Dockery (1996)

Siren

Siren

A big black shadow laced with
red insides
comes from the Gulf
covers Troy and kills fishes
Then up to Shadowville.

I saw this with my own eyes
it looked cosmic and poison.

They got a whole building covered up
down the street.
Sit here and wonder
it's obviously torn assunder.

Two light glows
a siren singing
behind the trees
flirting and winking.

I hear the siren somewhere
then the church bell rings "one"
and the siren stops.

-Will Dockery (1997)

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