Puzzuoli’s by John Doyle

Every dusk

Panama turns its back on me,

that’s fine, I've forgotten, already.

I'll remember Puzzuoli's, in lieu of these misgivings - like last time I heard

 

Obviously Five Believers, as I closed in on Singapore City,

half-awake, three-quarters trying not to sleep -

Puzzuoli’s, in porno-blue fly buzzing light.

In Panama City I found something - 

everlasting peace, a solitude of 

marble statues, jazz music tarred in sepia,

married men twisting their throats

in barbed-wire - another mile-long boulevard of sweaty cotton suits

before they considered divorce.

It’s final, divorce - 

a sweaty man in a dry cotton suit

tells me.

 

It's 12 hours after midnight - 

Jesus, this is hot -

It's hell on earth here;

like that time in 1987

 

trudging through a forest, 

shovels on our collarbones,

the gas-station kid’s body leaving stone-clutched trails

in the sour-faced dust. Oh yeah, I remember - 

 

that first time I knew Puzzuoli's 

was damned

was last May or April -

Paul Henry's blue-blurred dusk made stop-signs

 

look like Modern Art

stolen in a late-night heist, 

Van Morrison 

caught a Los Angeles connection, 

 

and we drank wine no-one kept receipts for.

In Panama City

the divorce rate is slowly rising, 

alongside the moon, the mercury, the capillaries of broken bottles -

Puzzuoli's

tearing-down

like a grizzly bear

chasing us through a forest

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.