(The Audience for Spill-O’s Engine)
Colin Dodds
With a wrath and rationalization,
and a disdain for the way
basic human needs latch onto and subvert
every waking moment
Spill-O’s Engine sings on
with a breath of burning motor oil.
The lukewarm lean in to hear the curses,
to cluck at the shabby clothes,
lap at the rage and absoluteness
of a heart eating itself out
and mostly to hear
the thrashing, horrible songs of their own hearts
from a safe distance.
Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. He’s the author of several novels, including WINDFALL and The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” Dodds’ screenplay, Refreshment, was named a semi-finalist in the 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. His poetry has appeared in more than a hundred publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha. You can find more of his work at thecolindodds.com.
