When the Heart Stops Beating and the Soul Leaves the Body by John Doyle

Oh Dante, 

you don't ever grow tired 

 

of stealing California 

do you?

 

turning your back on a bar of card sharks, 

illiterates and me

 

reading Joseph Finder's Company Man, 

like I was on the bus leaving Santa Teresa, 

 

not knowing which seat was mine, 

not really minding. 

 

Dante, 

don't you ever grow tired, 

 

striking matches on fat-damp flint, 

the Morse-code raindrops 

 

disturbing the sleeping trees

like insects 

 

escaping a child's swish of fingertip?

Turning left on a thirsty road for Sassari,

 

smoke hibernates in the harbor, 

a linguistic barrier

 

that tastes of steel on my sheep-white tongue,

Nero leaveing the hock-shop 

 

sans his fiddle,

Dante lost in the streets, somehow -

 

immolated and on his knees

he hears Neil Young's Old Laughing Lady, 

 

stops - 

quenches all his dreams in everyone else’s tears.

 

Someday we’ll watch boulders 

smash like thunder

 

trundling down mountain sides, 

even moss will burn

 

in the hail of sparks,

even the radio will weep

 

for the nights forgotten 

like necks 

 

swinging 

on the longwave dial;

Mark my words,

Dante

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.