Dennis Dwyer: The Bard of Tingley Beach

I published a story on the Duke City Fix about this fascinating man...a truck-driver who ended up going to college after falling off his truck twenty years ago. Here are a couple more poems. For more of his work be sure to see the DCF post.
Awakening

Tired brakes groan hot
taming Pennsylvania's hills.

The ripley tollbooth comes up fast.
Roll in, grab a ticket,
roll out.
The trailer belly sags
under twenty-two ton
of rumbling freight.

Led by a milkwhite October moon
I-90 lays out pale-blue with white trim
like Christmas ribbon.

I'm rollin' easy--into Buffalo.
Couple of quickbeers, then home.
She'll still be up
we'll eat, talk, fight,
make love, maybe.

Then Pow! A steering tire dies!
The drowsy wheel comes alive!
With 230 lbs. of trembling strain
I hold on,
we waken in the slumbering ditch,
blunt and floundering
like a dying whale.

My life rolls back behind my eyes
where we are,
out of control,
plunging into the grey blur of separation.

Then everything stops.
Wrapped in a bone-shaking chill
alone with the smells of hot fuel,
mauled rubber, and the life-saving mud,
I hear the angry crush
of tethereed freight set free,
settle to low muted groans.

I yearn to lie in the hollow of her bosom
speak of my fear
and helpless sorrow for us,
like I used to-----
years ago.


Again

Lying in a field of clover
a boy pilots Starship Enterprise
beyond the sky.
A grasshopper lands on his nose,
he holds his breath.

A man, sixty-five today,
lies in the clover.
This time around, his passions
are letters to be mailed.