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UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY
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JOHN DORSEY
the year joe brainard died i was in high school the papers didn't mention anything it was the year of charles bukowski kurt cobain and the teatro caffe all the kids i knew were busy wearing a heart shaped box on their sleeve i carried a trapper keeper with kittens on it my poems tucked inside sitting in the local mall my friend mike mason shaking as he read one aloud smoking countless swisser sweet cigars with conviction i don't remember the conversation only that mike drove a beat to shit 73 nova and that he spent $60 on egg rolls in 2 days because he had a crush on a girl that worked in the food court who would later take out a restraining order those were the days pre-trench coat mafia before bill clinton forgot to take that dress to the dry cleaners i did inhale saw nirvana at tingles just blocks away in 1991 kids today don't smoke like they mean it i remember that mike had a nervous condition had been through the 9th grade three times and was working on a 4th i remember we ran into this kid i knew from elementary school who looked exactly like lee majors i remember that was the year j.p. and i watched the stones for the first time from nosebleed seats at three rivers stadium in pittsburgh trading a poorly rolled joint for a couple of beers i remember later that night sitting on the curb talking to strippers from the good-n-plenty bar while we waited for my aunt to pick us up hey joe i think of you now and i remember many things i remember using a rolled up atlantic city sweat shirt as a pillow on hot summer nights in south philly i remember making out with lauren snow in a treehouse in penn hills at the age of 9 around the same time my grandmother died i remember gregory getting me a prostitute for the first time i remember randall "tex" cobb passed out drunk on a center city sidewalk at noon i remember running into him weeks later and that he took everyone to see "spiderman" down by the docks i still have the popcorn box he signed but i haven't talked to tyrone in years i remember the poncho brenda brought back from bolivia i still have it she has 2 children now i remember drinking for the first time airline bottles of vodka on a swing set age 11 i didn't stop flying for years i remember thoughts of suicide at 10 having to wear a plastic leg brace everywhere i went and how having cerebral palsy meant i wasn't normal i remember nights that are still going on somewhere drunk with fred at the cheap art cafe it's gone now i remember christina's smell how it stayed on my sheets for months after she was gone i remember my first lie i wish it had been my last i remember holding hands with caroline while sitting on a bench by the jewish cemetery in perrysburg ohio i remember that i haven't been in love since jessica left i remember that every day whether i want to or not thanks for the memories joe i think of you often lately can't say i remember you but from what i've heard you were the stuff ghosts write love songs about so tonight when i go to sleep i will try to remember the last words you sang in your dreams John Dorsey currently resides in Toledo, OH. He is the author of "Harvey Keitel, Harvey Keitel, Harvey Keitel" with S.A. Griffin and Scott Wannberg, Butchershop Press/Rose of Sharon Press/Temple of Man, 2005, and "Moshing With The Cosmos" with Iris Berry, Magenta Press, 2005. He can be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com |
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