the geometry of angels

i've always considered myself

a cheap date but

we've gotten to the

point where even suicide

is expensive 20 bucks

for some over the

counter sleeping pills i

can't afford to die

just yet so i

scribble love poems on

faded newspaper and revise

what i was going

to say the whole

concept of living seems

to be a numbers game

the national debt has

become the body count

of our nation's young

yet love is the

only war game where

everyone keeps score

i'd much rather count

sheep dreams are as

cheap and greasy as

smeared ink headlines that

might just as well

be printed  in   blood

between praying to the

dead and rolling a

joint i hear the

silence whisper listening in as

ghost sparrows and i

play keep away with

spirits the music of

another morning felt deeply

on our lips as

we force these young

lovers to count to

infinity inside every breath

the geometry of angels

we've yet to measure

in meter

in love with life

at some point we

are all simply ghost

children who like to

george lifts another case of guinness

as you watch him board the city bus

bicycle under one arm

cast covering his grin

& fallen leg

you wonder if he'll

ever get the message

watching "sawdust sally"

under crumpled crates

listening to iggy pop

in the rain

answering your question


ambient nation: the new vietnam

richard lives across the hall

and while most people chatter on endlessly

about how the state of union

is killing them he told

me once that his father

was murdered in his sleep

for a quarter of dank how his mother

was basically a crackwhore doing the whole

go go dancer thing watching erections

grind themselves silly into the skeleton

of her suburban dollhouse in

some small michigan town

before he was even whispered

as a morning after thought some

sweet nothing that's why to him

lucid dreams had always felt

like the killing fields

sometimes i watch him clean

piss out of the shower

on our floor and feel bad

that i suffer from depression

once he told me that he didn't

believe in suicide that hemingway

was just some fuckin' pussy afraid

to take the bull by

the horns to dance with

his shadow on the

other side telling me

if he was going to buy a gun then well

hell he might as well

start shooting people at random

this after calling me his

best friend saying that his heart produced

ambient music to feel whole but that the record

just kept skipping during the good parts

how the voices in his head were like

a wayward echo in the grand canyon

that had always made him think of that episode of

"the brady bunch" which left him

wishing mike and carol had raised him

as their own because he certainly would've

fucked greg either way

but you know i believe in order

and i've wondered more

than once if i'm on some

secret hit list kinda like a

screwed up version of the

billboard charts where he puts

one clean bullet between my eyes

in a mask that makes him look

like dick clark who i'm told is

the oldest teenager alive

and i think to myself

fuck the state of the union

who can think about the price

of oil when you're thinking

about what your life is worth

and how i knew this guy in philadelphia

who won 4 million bucks in the lottery

that went right back to selling weed

he told me once that sometimes when

you dance in the shadows

the ghosts talk back giving clues

to the date your death even if you

still claim to be breathing

just maybe that cat

had the right idea

cuz lately i've been thinking

yeah papa the sun also rises

for now and i'll give you

my two cents as long

as you pinky swear not to place them over

my eyes because i heard

on the radio that it's supposed

to be sunny out

later in   the week

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 "Holy Toledo!: The Sonnet River Volume" Sleepy

Brooklyn Press, 2008. He can be reached at

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Last update : 22-09-2008 12:48

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