Bill Dorris


Ironworks

Richie remembered the days and months
before death stood him in the face
the quick bursts of car exhausts
the ringing rickshaw bells
the little kids
holding grenades
he remembered swinging spud wrenches and sleeve bars
loading boxes of hollow points
12 gauge
swooping the delta at 3, 4000
whitetails
old men running
flames splashing over the forest like waves

He watched a screen door swing open
in Ohio
a parking lot limp through his days
tailpipes still turning to mortars
death losing count of its graves


Timber Rattlers

the sun comes in
and lights my back
the faces in my mind are gone

the fog lifts off the trees
ghost like

timber rattlers warm my bones



I feel the telephone fall dim
the screen gone to dust

the days rush in like soft
snow flakes


the buffalo turn for home

　
Strom Chaser

If I could hear an overture
of Figaro
or maybe Emmy Lou
There’d be no days lost
no friends gone
disappearing in enigma
accelerants, Harley flatheads
who’d need them
I could ride out on a Massey
a John Deere
ride out and search the funnel sky
for ground truth
and find it

no radar needed
　

Kilimanjaro

While eagles track the rising waves
and towns are laid in shallow graves
snow geese fly magnetic skies
north to arctic Kansas
While great minds search
in lost directions
the army
that final engineering profession
drills flagpoles down
the last snows
of oil
and uptown
as King Kong swings round
the last skyline
finally

comes tumbling


down