John Doyle writes

The Lesser-Known Presidential Assassinations

For Alyssa Trivett

I was born with lots of things across my hands,

snowflakes, blood, 

water from the Rio Grande.

Nothing compromised the science 

of each individual component,

snow-drifts grew larger, 

started a family,

moved north, blocking tin-can Ford trucks on freeways.

The blood I took, 

I added it to the bones from lesser-read pages in the Holy Book,

Adam had sisters, brothers, no-one spoke of, 

Eve was married twice before.

The lesser-known presidential assassinations spring-up

from tributaries of the Rio Grande,

William McKinley -

A good Protestant

County Antrim name

with sizzling stagecoach wheels

in thickened rains - gives church-yard

its Sunday chatter. 

James Garfield is mentioned in archives

where cigars, brandy

and the Witherspoon family 

of New England make generous donations

to rebuild our church-hall blown down 

in the winds and rains of 1908.

I was born with lots of things across my hands,

it's a map that remains,

its fauna blotchy

like dead animals hunting near a desert dirt-track

mutes and blind-folk 

were too terrified to rub with tar.

This is the word of someone's Lord;

Praise Be

John Doyle writes

Migratory Birds Going Home to Africa

The radio was shouting at you, pleading with you...

David Byrne

Vaguely orange with offerings of brown,

such a rusted sky - 

vapor-trails like Nuada's veins.

On the radio tonight I pretend it's Carl Corcoran

whom I've missed like an Uncle gone to war.

Carl plays Heartland Rock, Carl plays Afrobeat,

I remind myself every April, as this requiem is due-

about now - all these birds who fly southerly, 

marmalade-burned sundown, grass still brown.

It's five inches-high at our crossroads -

three local streams meeting like Uncles returned from war,

and I smell the farm and primary river

they flow to, sometimes - summer maybe, but usually April,

birds' whooshing chatter that plays Heartland Rock

on the radio, now that Africa is leaving.

Hey there Carl, tell me

if anyone is listening anymore,

on a transistor radio in a tent, something orange flashes overhead…?

John Doyle writes

I’ll Send You a Postcard Tomorrow Amelia, That I Promise

Negatives of my shoelaces

fade from my shins

as I dissolve into my myself,

appearing moments later

as an acrobat in Rush and Lusk Station

haunted by the puppeteer

who pulled the children

like seaweed from the waters -

it makes a believable alibi

explaining myself 

to a man checking tickets

who spent last night sleeping

in a wooden hotel from the late 19th Century

while his wife, son and daughter

trotted off to Sunday School

unaccompanied

John Doyle writes

James

I swipe two cans of Coke 

left for accounts,

crack one open as my train leaves behind a grizzly scene 

of vacuum cleaners strangling each other

 

in a cupboard about to explode like an atom-bomb.

I sit back letting the fart-soothed seat 

have its way with me. 

I let out a slow soft-belch,

 

a satisfyingly baritone-emission 

just inches short of where 

my esophagus is big daddy 

in the biological underground, 

 

where tonsils are bagmen 

who run from bars to bookies 

to cafes and address cops as Mr. Mulligan, Sir. 

James told me this morning he believed 

 

the difference between a Yorkshire accent 

and a Lancashire one was a certain buuurrrr 

that clings to the final syllable

of each sentence.

 

This is how it goes down,

how it should be,

this is how we moved from a swamp 

to a city, conquering all that dared stand before us

John Doyle writes

Arguments Outside Motel Windows

Houses were made for murders

eight miles from town,

teens in love

are on the run,

a whistling plague of locusts suddenly silent -

comes to mock those

alone in motel rooms, arguments loud,

getting heated -

sour-milk 

skinned killers saying little on checking-in,  

the horn-rimmed glasses

of lonely penny-counting men -

no newspapers left, 

the rack is empty -

though the rack keeps twisting

and twisting like an argument outside motel windows,

traffic driving past

on the interstate highway,

flies buzz

around oil-drums in the overgrown weeds, examining shit on leaves,

sleeveless-shirted girls on motorbikes

slap men who rev away

John Doyle writes

Taking Down Curtains in August

Days

which bring a song to us, 

are days

that slowed down a globe

to watch 

the queens of 

hemispheres 

plant corn

in the droves of August;

it's summer-time, 

a time to cleanse your curtains,

wear a dress to match your shoes

that

doesn't submit to swords and sea,

that won't leave toe-traces 

on sands that fire turns to glass -

there, water washes-up 

to take a soul,

a soul left in a song 

a window starts to locks-in,

that curtains hide like a spider looks for a fly

John Doyle writes

It All Just Fell Into Place

I'm used to drunken men

who cry at parties pops drives us home early from,

after two shots of Fanta, or his fourth glass of milk. 

Steve McQueen turned down roles 

as he couldn't cry on cue -

it was said to be his sole failing. I don't know.

 

I've cried a lot both drunk and sober -

Uncle Joe

cried after two shots of H2O

 

at his first party, months after his wife died.

I sat beside him, 

The Hunter was on T.V.,

 

Steve McQueen close to tears in his final scene

at the changing of the guard.

Somehow it all just fell into place, that night

John Doyle writes

ViolenceIsNeverTheAnswer

For John Patrick Robbins

 

Scott Walker

murdered seventeen infidels

in butcher's cuts of logic.

 

This was the nouveau chic 

of year-zero,

the kiss of death

 

an orchestra with their violin bows 

doused in gasoline

perched their lips to touch;

 

some made it,

others tumbled over the precipice -

the tympani-player for one, had to start again.

 

Scott Walker

gets measured-up 

for double-denim

 

in Saville Row

tomorrow.

If we pack our bags and leave by 5, we might just stop him,

 

but the men 

who wait at customs 

are former KGB. This makes things difficult

John Doyle writes

The Only Known Tape of Nick Drake Speaking

You're lying on your back in the forest,

it's dawn,

moist as deer giving birth, a blood-soaked

fire-crisp sky.

You breathe slower than clouds

that drive on the wrong side of the road. 

Europe is a crystal ball

that trickles ice like promises, escaping from the palms of your hands.

There is tree-bark that dangles from your hair,

petals detach in your sudden shapes,

rising to be anointed, replacing you,

where you used to be. It's not home.

There is the smell of coffee,

ginger, Arabia,

small woodland creatures,

witches, schoolgirls in pigtails click like knitting needles

in foul tongues they learned

from blues men.

This is wrong - the star-bent trajectory -

the horoscopes - 

the twisted sneer of brake-light on empty puddles.

Stand up, walk towards the nearest gate

like a fox hunting in the snow.

Thumb a lift towards the village,

keep your silence close to you,

the lady and the gent beside you 

are smiling

as they drive you away,

maybe they know your mother, your father,

maybe they saw your sister on TV saving Earth from aliens.

Silence hangs from your caftan -

It's how you'll bargain for your bread,

for your milk and honey,

should those wolves and dogs

start howling,

and there's no moonlight

for the next few decades. You seen the splinters of your guitar

lying in the ditch as you approached the village.

No-one knows if you stopped and bandaged it,

stopped it from bleeding

Nick Drake -- Keith Morris

John Doyle writes

Worth 

Millions

moving through solid air, solid air  

John Martyn

A 
swinging light-bulb from a cracked ceiling scenario,

crooked-stringed acoustic guitar, 

caffeine, 

old man’s tobacco,

tapes rolling;

milkmen prowl streets shrouded in the end of days.

There were no overdubs, except that piano,

that commercial aeons later,

that moon changing tones, somewhat red, 

somewhat white,

a difficult choice, it seemed.

The kid didn't see a penny back in ‘72,

spare change for bus conductors with little to share,

a smile on a country road, 

out of petrol, 

waiting for parents to come, 

collect,

polite smiles, 

turbulent skies,

out of leaves, 

begs cigarettes

from the postman. 

He looks at the river, the sun is rising



Pink Moon -- Michael Trevithick