Chet Baker Walked Riverside Drive
I Was a Kid
Errol Flynn's Favorite Bar
Priceless Stones
Jim Harrison's Wandering Left Eye
Mary Lou's Flowers
Only in Dreams
Joel McCrea
Babe Ruth in India
Nelson Algren Had a Two Year Old Daughter
Chet Baker Walked Riverside Drive
in the harsh winter
braving wind & snow
his front teeth
sounded like drug dealers
he’d hated in jail
despite his popularity
slicked back hair & sweet tone
his teeth had forgotten he died
the way your lips
remember the weather
in amsterdam.
a different person
carrying my name
a valid passport
with no place to stay
twenty-five years later in paris
in photos
with no guitar.
very old men
would be dead within months
that winter everyone behaved crazy
& everyone relived his death.
Return to list of poems
a dozen lives
at the expense
of naked divers
you called them
astonished treasures.
Jum Harrison's Wandering Left Eye
taught him how to read
a racing form.
are beautiful
like a snake
writing poems.
the dead return
to avoid
bad weather.
girls ignite boys
with honest intentions
ida lupino wanted a match.
buddha gunned down
in 1955.
Nelson Algren Had a Two Year Old Daughter
& kept his head drunk
a loaded shotgun
outside the window
he stole a car
& died two weeks later.
John Dorsey is the former Poet Laureate of Belle, MO. He is the author of several collections of poetry, including Which Way to the River: Selected Poems: 2016-2020 (OAC Books, 2020), Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, (Spartan Press, 2022, and Pocatello Wildflower, (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2023). He may be reached at archerevans@yahoo.com.