The Man Cave with John Dorsey
poem for chrissy
my first apartment had
bars on the windows
and a hawk with
one eye that sang
like little jimmy scott
every time it rained
this girl down the
hall liked to claim
that she could hear
helen keller’s ghost crying
through her bedroom wall
i thought she was probably just drunk
i fucked her anyway
to keep the voices out
she had a rosary
around her neck
and a thing for bad religion
i had a taste
for cheap scotch and a
kinship with the dead
long before we ever met
she told me once
that she thought helen
had entered her body
as a little girl
and liked to giggle
whenever we were making love
i told her “this isn’t
my first time fucking
a ghost and it
probably won’t be my last”
we had decided to
sail away together just
the 3 of us
at night she spent
hours placing tissue boxes
around her bed collecting ghost tears
like invisible rain gutters
during the day i built
a tiny sailboat in
the courtyard and placed it
inside an empty dewars bottle
then one day she went to therapy
and helen stopped crying
and our love rolled out
crashing in waves
of saltwater tears
John Dorsey
John Dorsey was born in a military hospital in HI in 1976.
He has traveled to 49 states and several countries and found love to be fleeting in all of them. He is the author several collections of poetry you’ve never read and will probably hit you up for a “loan”. He has read with such poets as S.A. Griffin, Scott Wannberg, Ellyn Maybe, The David Smith, T.L. Kryss, Ann Menebroker, Neeli Cherkovski, A.D. Winans, the late Gregory Corso, and the late Allen Ginsberg and many others. His work has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize.
Yes, ladies…he is currently single
Good to read John at OW again. I think I saw something about him moving away from Toledo recently. Where’s he at now?
I believe he said he was in Ft. Collins, CO.
David…Scot is correct, I’m in Fort Collins.
Nice poem.
Damn, I wish I were single now; you wrote a killer piece – loved this especially:
“this isn’t
my first time fucking
a ghost and it
probably won’t be my last” – really set the tone!