John Dorroh

2 Poems

Eclipsed

When the moon passed between your face & the sun, I shadowed myself under pebbles along the creek where fish shadowed sand grains that shadowed things smaller than themselves. It wasn’t meant as a contest which leaves its victims listless, unable to hook beauty in the eye & marvel graciously at an invisible star 93,000,000 miles away. Who came up with that number in the first place? Archimedes with his Greek savvy for solving complex math problems without as much a calculator? Einstein, his wild hair, his immigrant status from a country too blind to recognize his gift? 4 ½ minutes of surreal existence offering me a crisp perspective, that I won’t be here forever, nor the sun or the moon, or the stars that sparkled like jewels in the azure heavens, that brilliant corona that tempted me to look, just for a second or two, so I could receive validation that, as far as the big picture is concerned, I’m as insignificant as a solitary electron in the shell of a helium atom. I didn’t look the corona in the face, nor try to talk to God while the confused rooster crowed in the background over the ridge where the second sunrise of the day appeared like a dream. Instead, I wallowed in goosebumps, sat as quietly as a church mouse, wondering about the shadows that I cast upon my own precious planet.

Deadwood

I hug you, big tree, scratchy bark peeling off

into my palms,

      empty, lifeless, I feel no sap in your core,

your dead leaves hanging on

      for another season

      of slow growth, excruciating

      to live such a fruitless life, haunting the landscape

only to be counted in some useless census

John Dorroh has never fallen into an active volcano, nor has he caught a hummingbird. However, he did manage to bake bread with Austrian monks and drink a healthy portion of their beer. Five of his poems were nominated for Best of the Net. Others have appeared in over 100 journals, including Feral, North of Oxford, River Heron, Wisconsin Review, Kissing Dynamite, and El Portal. He had two chapbooks published in 2022.

John Dorroh

2 Poems

Eclipsed

When the moon passed between your face & the sun, I shadowed myself under pebbles along the creek where fish shadowed sand grains that shadowed things smaller than themselves. It wasn’t meant as a contest which leaves its victims listless, unable to hook beauty in the eye & marvel graciously at an invisible star 93,000,000 miles away. Who came up with that number in the first place? Archimedes with his Greek savvy for solving complex math problems without as much a calculator? Einstein, his wild hair, his immigrant status from a country too blind to recognize his gift? 4 ½ minutes of surreal existence offering me a crisp perspective, that I won’t be here forever, nor the sun or the moon, or the stars that sparkled like jewels in the azure heavens, that brilliant corona that tempted me to look, just for a second or two, so I could receive validation that, as far as the big picture is concerned, I’m as insignificant as a solitary electron in the shell of a helium atom. I didn’t look the corona in the face, nor try to talk to God while the confused rooster crowed in the background over the ridge where the second sunrise of the day appeared like a dream. Instead, I wallowed in goosebumps, sat as quietly as a church mouse, wondering about the shadows that I cast upon my own precious planet.

Deadwood

I hug you, big tree, scratchy bark peeling off

into my palms,

      empty, lifeless, I feel no sap in your core,

your dead leaves hanging on

      for another season

      of slow growth, excruciating

      to live such a fruitless life, haunting the landscape

only to be counted in some useless census

John Dorroh has never fallen into an active volcano, nor has he caught a hummingbird. However, he did manage to bake bread with Austrian monks and drink a healthy portion of their beer. Five of his poems were nominated for Best of the Net. Others have appeared in over 100 journals, including Feral, North of Oxford, River Heron, Wisconsin Review, Kissing Dynamite, and El Portal. He had two chapbooks published in 2022.

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