The Moon is clean-shaven,
Jean Renoir’s flick-knife blinded in its glare;
he cuts and slits his reels
until they bleed less and less,
in the kind of silence
morning sunshine gathers moonshine's stubble in.
Damn your eyes rages the man
standing on the ladder
hammering nails
into Christ - he will not live to tell the tale.
My grandmother prayed for men like him,
men found dead in burning pubs all alone
on newspaper front-pages
in the early 1980s.
On the city's coal-charred limits
the lizards lick sandpapered trees.
San Pedro Del Pinatar is sticky, barren,
an abstract of burned soldiers
and failed post-modern
architects - Spain the searing mirage
of tourist children's sand-castles
in black and white films from 1970.
Your dashboard mirror
is pale and sickly, lacking sleep, hydration -
the shadows of everything you did to me -
sneaking down the highway
where the constellation of Cygnus
twists like a dead snake
around the only speed-limit sign
for the last two decades -
evening's traffic
murdered by keypad daggers,
tobacco-spit
in a stallion-tamer's tin-bucket.
You were a virgin
sitting underneath the cedar trees
in Murcia,
begging me to share cuss-words with you,
I made morbid jokes
about a clown's makeshift noose,
missed airport taxis
as you twirled your
$20 wedding dress to the melody of the
drugstore garbage can blues,
the city-street
sodden shoes,
the ashes of your father's guitar
like salt sizzling in puddles.
The song-less trees
hung like martyred renegades
over the cowering shopkeeper,
who stopped and offered water to the shamed martyred mother.
They had a painting of Jesus in the cafe next morning,
with a spliff in his mouth.
My grandmother prayed for people
who mocked like that,
I know that my grandmother
was right.
John Doyle became a Mod again in the summer of 2017 to fight off his impending mid-life crisis; whether this has been a success remains to be seen. He has has two collections published to date, A Stirring at Dusk in 2017, and Songs for Boys Called Wendell Gomez in 2018, both on PSKI's Porch.
He is based in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland. All he asks is that you leave your guns at the door and tie up your horses before your enter.
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This is a long poem and I was sure you'd run out of good ideas but you DINT.
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