poetry by Will Dockery
Tick Tock Gone Gone
Fadeaway Encounter
Fawn Greyhound
Mister Spinster
Splendor Span
William Bloodaxe Graybeard
Red Tide
God Smiles
Smile At Me
Connections
Siren
Invasion of the Warrior Lords
Black Eagle Lady
Wave
Stoneman the Cat
Sweet Dark Memory
Dog Beads
Combat Zone
Shadowville
Mari
Brain Green website
Links
new Dockery poems
How are ya'll down there?
It is sunday 10:45
and I'm lonesome as Hank Williams ever was.
I write this letter
to have an excuse to go out walking.
It's cold here.
Never thought Florida would be cold.
Check the weather in the paper,
you'll see Florida gets chilly...
The ocean wind can be cold.
You know what I'm thinking of.
And all that means.
You may have some idea of what I mean.
But I would be lonesome
on those dark streets of Shadowville, too.
I'm doing okay,
just so lonesome.
This almost looks like a poem.
Ah, such is life.
Take care, and write soon.
-Will dockery.
Life force rattles I feel it in my flesh,
one love like the rasta told me.
Flying mystery I saw as a child,
wet and rapid, floating grey and smiling,
electric and aware,
you are good humor sweet angel of death.
To that point where the silver glistens,
under soft ground where our people play.
Blue territory no longer mine,
Op bop, see it with your mind, hear it with your soul.
What now for us, my twisted dark love?
Monket love, baby love, rolling in the red bugs love,
puppy love, good sweet love, paid for love, back door love,
old love, or make believe love?
Just show me the sign, crack open my mind,
op bop, visual mental abstract and imperfect.
-Will Dockery.
I ripped out that poem,
threw it into the creek.
I ripped out that poem,
threw it into the creek.
The words floated in pieces,
through the big rocks bit by bit.
I never want to see words like that agin,
never want to feel that kind of poem again.
I never want to see words like that again,
never want to feel that kind of pain again>
Pain and sunshine,
spring is on the way, babe.
Lost away here in Shadowville,
we should never have met.
Lost away here in Shadowville,
we should never have met.
Nobody ever saw that poem,
the words make me feel teneder and foolish.
Weak and loving,
I am exposed as weary and beat.
Weak and loving,
I am exposed as weary and beat.
I surrender, I know,
I know that it's impossible.
-Will Dockery.
Planting plum trees-
Pops was squatting patting the dirt,
from a long row of small plum trees.
Slowly carefully patting the dirt around them,
like he used to do when he was alive.
Another guy was standing nearby him,
wearing lots of colors and shapes, blues, reds,
in lots of shades.
The light was bright and cool.
To the right were trees with what looked like
small red apples...two or three of these trees.
Another couple of trees behind the long row
of small plum trees,
with fruit like I've never seen before ---
I wanted to ask the multicolored man what they were,
it was a yellow, almost melon-like fruit,
with bumps or something -what's the word-
as I watched Pops, squinting and brown,
intense and happy, patting the soil.
My brother, young and shaven headed,
was completely involved with the two turtles he'd found,
a huge mama turtle and a small baby turtle.
The mother, open mouthed, seemed to be smiling.
For some reason my mama had grey hair,
for some reason my brother was a shaven kid again,
Innocent, speechless (as usual) and exploring.
For some reason Pops was alive, patting the soil.
-Will Dockery
Love may come tommorow, bone, the way this is going,
devil's drink takes all night, in this tomcat mirror.
It happened a long time ago,
now you don't have a shadow. (the ground is grinding)
A screaming soap opera.
there was: little flowers, ruined ritual, horn-rimmed glasses.
There was: skeletal mushrooms, mystery rain.
Fate has been a bad girl, a long time ago,
a long time ago, elevator memory,
of the red cavalier. (Back Back Back) to you.
You had some great style,
taught me to feel the karma in this season,
tasting the flavor.
The sun moves in circle like an animal,
blind leader of the immortals,
she forgot that things follow.
I feel the Atlantic east.
Then she floats on the edges of clouds,
as she sleeps.
-Will Dockery.
Words spoke, -Will Dockery
Climbling that hill. Who are you, anyway? Trouble in paradise, Is the Antenna Head still with us, among the living? But back to you, who are you anyway, girl? -Will Dockery 2/97
Riptide waves, -Will Dockery.
Walked through the rain to the telephone, Tried every place I could think of, Heated up a can of soup in the apartment. -Will Dockery.
It gloves together like a fit, TREMBLE TOES, BONE CLATTER! Inside the China garden walls,
rocks, fish and stagnant water. Crush of secrecy, Shadowville sidewalk images and runes, In and out of jams and readings. -Will Dockery.
Cold blue in the room, Cold blue television light. Blue hash smoke, The breeze-. Smoke odor, Abandoned green hotel -Will Dockery.
Click clack, click clack, she never looked back, A desperate defense for a desolate icon, -Will Dockery.
Weariness,soon to be picked up anew, She said that she was really burned out, The grey things, inhabiting the planes, She showed me where I had to go, Answers like seeds being dispersed into the breeze. She stood there, -Will Dockery
Sky songs written with cloud and light, -Will Dockery
So many memories here, Love unconditionally, -Will Dockery 5/25/99
Bark, Bitter Night -Will Dockery 4-99
And I am shoved back into this night life. -Will Dockery
Remember the cold, Remember the hallway, Seven sisters, The moon is waning, little icon, Remember the memory, -Will Dockery 8/15/95
Hair rolling down her back. Narrowed his eyes at the cars. Up into the elevator, concrete lips. -Will Dockery 2/26/83
Into the night -Will Dockery
you told me that there's nothing wrong, -Will Dockery
actions shown,
the look.
Where are you, sister?
Still a believer?
Keep the homefires burning,
I watch for errant knights.
Repay the debt in kind,
after three weeks it still blows my mind.
The images from that night,
still leave me sad and breathless.
No harm really came from it,
though nothing is the same,
except my heart,
broken like never before.
Start up a new one,
fresh, cold call,
let the words snap up against the wall.
Or down onto the table,
in this zen bar psychic babel,
it happens, babe.
Don't know where this is going,
could I look at reality,
and understand my paranoia.
As for what is happening,
I feel fine in this strange new world.
This summer world, I feel the burn,
I might thrive on it, in my own way.
When the clouds are so rapid they bring in a storm,
I admire the slow moving liquid.
it happens, babe.
Events crossed up here and played out,
the timing of these different panics,
what was here or was it over there.
Mystery of the whole sequence,
I have to talk in code again.
A mystery through the dreamscape,
that must be reality.
Florida is burning,
ashes are turning,
and all I can see is fire.
The mornings grey up,
the nights darken down,
at this stage of it all is smoke.
Our kingdom has crumbled into dust.
What I am locked into is a crushed time frame,
faded love a memory in my brain.
It happens, babe.
Bird Rhythm
Through the side of the campus.
Queenie climbs that hill often, I've never been there before.
Like a fractal, everything is connected,
reading the words of God in nature, and icons.
People walk by in a beautious parade made in Jah's image,
of color of sight and sound.
People of all kinds in and out of the library,
a strong rain wind is blowing up high in the air.
A sky plane goes by cutting in the sound barrier,
probably stirred up the mix so the love caint get through.
A giant black ant has come to great me,
he said he thinks that God might be green.
He wanders across this ancient concrete.
I miss my friends down in rainbow dreamtown.
I hear the sounds of people talking,
as they walk on the other side of the tree.
I hear the dumb roar of haints echoing from some past time.
Golden glow of God coming through silver mist clouds,
awake, village idiot.
The light falls down on this page as I write, I feel like I am
the idiot savant who is spoken to by God,
he said just "follow the lighted path."
I want to see you, speak with you,
and in the green leaves before me I can see your runes.
Spelling words in the forest leaves behind CVCC library,
as I have seen before, clover runes on the side of the highway,
letters framed by distant dead trees on a horison.
One bird, behind me is making a song, a solo,
this bird is singing avant garde jazz...
Two more in front of me start up,
with a bird rhythm reminds me of the folksinging lady.
-Will Dockery
Silver Glassy Rain
Are you the girl that rode horse,
out there in the mythical little planet,
seen here and there?
You called my Angex a queer little thing,
that little thing,
is death.
It clattered outside my grandmother's kitchen window,
in the dusty driveway,
on a slamming clattering Alabama night.
Corbin and Birdface arguing on the spiral staircase.
I just walked on my way to the rock shop,
maybe say hello to Balek.
No hook to this thought, exactly,
this queer little thing.
This double typewrite situation,
this funky friendship of the writerly production.
Me and my father parked on the seven mile road once,
about the time the carload of relatives were going home.
in the years of fine,
when stolen cans of beer tasted like bitter wine,
in the days of old.
A Ladonia gas station called Mojo,
with inverted dice in its logo,
in the days yound and blind,
when I was out of my childhood mind,
in the days of '67.
Or has his system finnally given in,
heart stopped like other organs have already,
like his heart stopped when he heard Coralizard
had dyed her hair black?
Last time I saw him.
So song since we both prowled the Avenue of Defeat,
the brain baby,
the blue baby, two beatnik babies in the nursery,
we were born about a day apart from each other,
that was in '58,
such a funky world to have come right into.
You seem sad and you are my friend,
but there's nothing I can do to stop it,
I know pretty well your Taurus brain,
it's gotta do what it has to do,
I know better than to try and change you, man.
He's a May baby, a blue baby,
you are indeed the statuesque beauty blindfolded,
that my cards told me about, maybe.
Two readings on two genres of somehow magic cards,
and you show up in both.
I can track the evidence down, you know,
how the Hell does that happen?
to the Sea Angel
there goes the sea angel,
right above the waves.
These mystery years,
where would I be without them?
What if I'd stayed happy?
Years lost,
these last few I've played catch up,
drifting from the shore.
Barnacles on an olive shell,
brain choral in my mind.
Instrumental tune,
made by the incoming waves.
I tossed a starfish back in,
watched it twirl away,
and thought of you.
Looked All Over
it was cold outside, winter, you know,
so I knew it would be this way.
I was looking out that busted up window,
and knew that the phone call was needed,
but it was cold outside, and raining.
Got blown by that misty rain,
driven off days to find her,
but she was as missing as possible.
which in hindsight was not that many.
I forget sometimes just how big a city can be.
She was missing.
Possibly insane.
I even talked with her dad who said nothing.
I looked all over,
couldn't see the forest for the trees.
I looked all over,
a frozen wall of emotions between then and me.
I looked all over,
but it was actually over before I even began.
Stirred in some bizarre leftovers.
There was a knock on my door.
It was Berg, who was cackling and crazed,
laughing about somebody who had given him a ride.
I had to go to the telephone,
into the rain,
to try and find her...
I talked to the police who could only speak of death.
I looked all over,
looked up to the sky as the rain came down.
I looked all over,
watched the searchlights at the used car lot.
I looked all over,
would have been nice,
to know what her family knew.
Motor-Bike.
some kind of crystal wristwatch.
I rode dreamtown on a motor-bike,
through the black early morning.
Faint arouma,
your essence all in my nose.
That which is invisible,
those things that can be seen...sing for me.
When the morning crash,
and no sleep to be had,
exist in this oasis of the present.
Over the way, over the rock bridge.
Dragons, lions and soul food.
Chicken fried by real black people.
Smoke stains, cheese-toast and a cup of java.
Smoke smoulder from the ashtray on my knee.
--- this is not some conspiracy.
a stream of smoke from Raven's cigarette fire.
Mix of smoke blue in the light.
Two geeks and a few freaks.
I feel green like Jack Midnight,
gimping into the dawn, broken-hearted little mystery.
Somehow still ride my motor-bike.
Can see the pavement rocks,
outside by the trees it is dark.
not far from the oasis or the dunes.
Near Watermelon Hill, near other stuff, too.
On a buy-and-fly for the brother,
make sure I take the sidewalk.
When I get to the place,
gold tooth lady refuses to sell me any beer.
Who-who.
my springtime jam, your good cedartree...
She's going back to get her stuff,
ample supplies of karma and luck.
Sunny afternoon bask,
March winds are bound to rage.
Cold Room
the television light,
and the lonesome of alone,
lonely telephone.
Mind staggering depression.
Alone with coffee.
he spoke.
With a voice so much like mine.
Like those voices deep inside
a lonely telephone.
Whisking through downtown-
blowing my hair-
lights sparkle-.
voices deep inside.
Words of delusion and wit,
in the telephone.
inside the air tastes dusty.
Now we are alone,
now we are gone.
Galatea
in her oversized little high heals.
Into the elevator and then out on the street,
and I was left alone with one cigarette in the heat.
His blood was spilled, her flesh and blood, on Broad Street,
Straw Janie on a hill with a dripping red bandanna,
her thoughts were good justice as she weighs the facts she knows.
She said,"Erase! Erase! For your very own good,
follow my dark path, I'll give you shelter and love flows..."
I knew this dark woman's thoughts like staring into a mirror,
standing in the factory, I saw her from the past, B shift whistle blows.
Back to the pizza delivery,
driving out to Pratt Whitney,
breaking down and crying in the Mutec parking lot,
I just could not carry on any more.
So I cast it aside and I never looked back,
if I did I knew it would crack up my mind.
The jobs I had are like signposts to where my life was then,
and I see images and deja vu, some dismal and some kind.
Walk back and forth down South Railroad street's tracks,
counting crossties at daylight sidestepping time.
Galatea, you are made of stone,
forever and a day a stone woman.
Galatea you hve many homes,
to these places you turn with smoke in your doorway.
the tender rose flesh I recall was between your legs.
The soft spots that gave me an electrical tingle,
the sweet connection of love building and building.
I bust and have to book, so I'll see you later,
stopped by to see Megan and drop off some cash.
On the way there was a possum that I'd see often,
out on Orchard Hill Road where people dumped their trash.
Seemed to be a smart one, stayed out of the traffic,
I would see him somewhere between the factories,
grinning and aware and watching with amusement.
I was amused too, because my fresh bag smelled aromatic.
I pulled the car over to burn a number,
three hippies with blood in their eyes,
in this grim Texas nightmare of modern day car drivers,
we had a duty to a friend which we could not back down on.
On the CB I hear her voice crackling out full of static,
as I was riding with the Jester and the Arc of Divers.
Think back on the day with not one solution,
frozen like stone by the side of the road.
Galatea, you are made of stone,
forever and a day a stone woman.
Galatea, you raise the words on an elctric tome,
to the porch to bath the rain this tropical air.
The Science Ladies
there was the Spaniard,
and he told a tale of blood anew.
"No more ficticious words,
no more underhanded tactics done up ---"
The words were spoken seriously to him,
but the words are spoken as if forced,
and Mary turned out to be a man.
so seductive and strange.
He said ---"Where is the man with the preludes?"
The Science Ladies
inhabiting the length of soul.
where the lumber was kept.
Particles that were stinging my lungs.
The godly seal, the grey seal, will dissolve.
400 years, 800 years of slavery.
told me what I had to know.
And as she told me,
the land was being pelted with snow.
The Science Ladies
wandering inside my soul.
with a handfull of gleaming seeds.
She opened her eyes to me.
We stood on the marsh of reeds,
the understanding of the ages,
would grow in my mind from this point in my childhood.
The Science Ladies
inhabiting the length of soul.
Sky Song
and numbers, look that up.
To a point, I see it and the sound echoes off the brick.
Queen of darkness, she's out of sight,
our lady of the earth.
Tall and hot,
travel lightly.
Mispoken, I did not know the details then,
it's real clear to me now.
Into the breath,
ringing down from the sky.
Poems the sky writes on slick paper,
wet ink glistens on the leaves and the grass.
She has cartoon red hair,
he is the man with the finger flow.
They become as one on the floor.
It is clear to me now,
what am I to say on this strange warm night?
I am as a statue.
The moon sings,
my heart rings with a strange new sadness.
Grove Of Mystery
in this grove of mystery.
Smoke floats gently, kind of sad,
big green and little Miss Olive,
green eyes impossibly unique.
We're down by law.
On this walkabout, hot, stoned, heartsick.
We all know this is the time to be wise,
when to hone and think on my feet.
Piecea of Eight vanish from Poseidon,
ninety percent law, ten percent water.
Passing through underground Shadowville,
heartbreaks as far as eye can see.
Lady Abi cooking in her tent,
shopping cart and umbrella,
behind the shut down International club.
She's plotting out miniscule facts,
and directions.
the direction the heart must take.
In set adrift,
clear light in my eyes when I wake.
My heart's just not in it,
Raven is chained away in the infirmary.
Soul float through clouds,
enforced separation,
just a bunch of too much junkie buisness.
I's spellbound, now struck dumb.
In the lighted corridors,
the trees make shadows.
The cars and airplanes in a montage,
constantly changing and in motion.
Moon is good to have back,
if this was ever really true.
So many memories here,
in this grove of mystery.
Teletubby Blues
starry springtime,
Parnell, me and my baby
drinking beer,
listening to Irish war folksongs
talking about Y2K
the return of Christ
Balduur & all their other friends.
Goterdamerung ---
I'll see you in the Hall of Heroes.
Baby, when you flee Catholic Heaven.
A little fragment of dogwood,
a snippet of mistletoe
take a mouthful of Kryptonite.
Parnell choked Elaine
while I went inside for ice.
Salt on my head,
pepper on hers.
Good vibes instantly go dark
while the music speaks of Black & Tans.
Of this shed life
this savage drunken sodden life
a poet's life.
Tuesday With Little Spain
Well, she said, she said, she said it was impossible.
There is a place, it smoulders, it is the past, dreamtime,
wander these dark corridors of memory.
I sleep so deep, I don't like to sleep,
my dreams threaten to take me away.
Floating in a sea of bad vibes, I do these things over and over,
repentatively, feel regret but keep doing it over and over.
Then the whole thing becomes a blur.
Grey and pasted, patched together with spackling
and sheet rock mud, a disgusted perversion of humanity.
During the decline and fall of poetry, in the summer of sardonic excess,
I sat with Little Spain on her steps, and felt her softness.
Still a sky poet, though tattered and glowing,
brought down from Blue Territory, no longer in Blue Territory.
I wandered by a cold river in the flaming copper land of summer.
This complete process of remaking we had, your mix of pales and shades,
your, disctinctive, mythic self, one distinct sing of your eyes...
I must bitterly understand our fate, we were never meant to be,
Like lost in the mirror'd rooms of a crazy house.
Crimson on the napkins,
pink fuzz on the clover.
Maneuver to the left, and forward,
into a mud soaked future.
Dialogue.
yes, I remember.
Remember I love you,
yes, I remember that.
yes, I remember.
White circles in your blue stones,
yes, I remember that.
none really blood relation.
They were bound by Mercury,
they were closer than family.
yes, I remember.
Wish that it had have happened that night,
then this would not happen.
yes, I remember that.
Remember I love you,
yes, I remember that.
Remember the steam,
remember the green.
Remember that I love you,
yes, I remember that.
Chessmen & Dominos
He sank as if into a sea.
His back packed with paper.
Sax red in hand on the street.
He was hungry but so confused.
Vision and memory ---
of hair rolling down her back.
He shrank as if into a sea.
And he reached into his top hat,
pulling for a rabbit.
(his stomach in knots in hope to find her)
Finding only chesmen & dominos.
Light sprinkled on the 285 river.
The jagged freezing sleet,
it pounded him in sets of shining slivers.
He was hungry but so confused.
Memory so bitter and sweet.
Of hair rolling down her back.
Tears in the splashes of silver.
He reached into his top hat,
grasping for a rabbit.
(momentary shock of nothing there)
Just a handfull of chessmen & dominos.
The gasping coldness of the barren shaft.
The empty hall with floating ghostlikes.
Silver snow fell onto his boots.
He was hungry but so confused.
The moonlight reflected on the snow.
Vision and memory,
of robin's nest of hair on her back.
Her head turned, two stabs of blue.
He reached into his top hat.
There was a dwindling feeling.
The cold felt... personal.
Blown down just for him.
Finding only chessmen & dominos.
Into The Night
this sad, twisted, dyslectic, heartsick, mad black night.
Into that convoluted void that reeks of decay ---
of loss, of the endless series of lies,
dreams and this consentual blue debt infested nightmare.
I did not speak to you, because I was mut.
These words of mine are powerless,
they rattle against a dark corner.
For you, baby.
Images haunt me, at the top of the stairs,
on the cover of Merrygoround newspaper, this empty bed.
I don't know you any more, I don't know nothing.
On the way,
in these ending, these partakings, these readings, these lies.
Caramel color in the woodgrain that cascades me, this magic oil,
green little shoots becoming my worst nightmare.
When in fact the ending is a new beginning,
a new beginning without you.
Dark little castles are being built where they need to be,
certain structures have to be erected in this waste, you know.
Down a paved road on the first day of summer.
Once again I'm thinking... can't seem to shut out the memories...
of the day that I met you, the sweet day I first hugged you,
and I think of now and how I must forget you.
Then I start thinking about miracle, about Raine,
thinking about prison and what I'd go through to find her.
I remember the charms and the sweet love she gave me,
when I was in debt to you and you meant me no harm.
she dreamed of Keith Richards
you need to know what's really going on.
you say you love me I believe that's true,
I need a little more from you.
action action happy action speaking like
happy action
to see what i've heard c'mon my poet girl,
show me the word.
Action action you know I need happy
action is what I need, on your happy
action.
you see me sometimes and you know
it's clear,
I love you baby, year after year.
if you can remember what it was like to
feel this hurt
though it's crushing my spirit, I will always
be there for you.
action action happy action dreaming of
our happy action
you need please backtrack just a little
baby,
one way or another this separation just
can't work.
Action action you know I need your legs
wrapped around me
love shots, love taps, I'm starving and on
my last smoke.
