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| Author: |
John Dorsey |
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John Dorsey’s playlist prompted by seven words selected at random from Protest! – the debut publication from Beat the Dust Press:
P: Nature - Fake Wood Trim by Emmet Swimming
R: Adrift - One is the Loneliest Number by Three Dog Night
O: Face - Pretty One by Roy Orbison
T: Happy - Shiny Happy People by R.E.M
E: Vagrant - Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan
S: Sea - Brandy by Looking Glass
T: Nothing - Losers by Dave Van Ronk
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| Submission Date: |
| 06 Nov 2009 |
Category: |
Poetry
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In Podcast and Chap-book
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Video: Three Dog Night performing One in 1969
training wheels
i can remember the first
time i ever saw
my father cry it
was a warm summer day
in 1986 he'd just found out
his best friend died
having survived vietnam only
to be killed in
a motorcycle accident at
the age of 31
a year younger than
i am now that was
the summer the training
wheels were supposed to
come off my first bike
i watched my dad
lock his harley in
my grandmother's shed left to
rust away to nothing
but memory and bone
he locked my bike up too
supposedly for safe keeping
but i never saw
it again after that
i watched him go in superman
and come out human a pimple
faced teenager who had
once signed on the
dotted line for jungle warfare
without giving it a second thought
i watched as he tried to
hold back tears as
he sent me to go
pick dead flowers out of the yard
the 4th of july had
come early that year
when the space shuttle challenger
exploded into a million
little pieces of brilliant
light like a chernobyl sunset
that was the summer
riding a bicycle stopped
being a symbol of independence
i still take the
bus and carry my
father's army issue duffel
everywhere i go
i remember my dad's
first car was a
1963 ford galaxy
that he bought for 15 bucks
with a childhood friend
and how he smiled
like a kid thinking
about a joyride when
he talked about the dents
and rust like they
were the first and
last stars he ever saw in the sky
invisible dragons
the men in my
family have always been
mill workers cement contractors
auto mechanics and war heroes
hell's angels with dirt under their fingernails
when i was a
kid my father cleaned
carpets after the steel
mills went down after
being forced out of
the army due to high blood
pressure he fixed cars
and worked the graveyard
shift doing maintenance work
at a dog food
warehouse just to get by
my grandfather worked 16hr
days in a pittsburgh
boiler room with a
cot sitting in the
corner sometimes he wouldn't
even go home
my uncles poured the
foundations of houses they
couldn't ever afford to
live in and got
drunk every night
on the weekends
they smoked weed rode
harleys and drank
iron city beer and
stoney's by the keg
my little brother and
i have never really
fit in him wrapping
meat part-time at a local
grocery store sleeping on
my parents couch and
doing battle with depression
every day drunkenly fucking
middle aged women from
the church down the street
while i write poems just to
keep my head together
our demons have always
been like uncles like fathers and
their fathers before them
they laugh in the rain
tell war stories to
invisible dragons and pin medals
on the shadows of stronger men
demons in the sandbox
there are demons in the sandbox of love
a silent boy catches doves with a butterfly net
he runs his fingers along the outline
of his hand print in the sand
he says there are demons in the sandbox of the mind
tiny sea monsters
singing a loud silence
into the music box of the heart
he says there are demons
pounding nails into the ocean floor
breaking his silence
into a million little pieces of truth
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