by John Dorroh
The Contestant
“the carriage could symbolize a Hertz”
student essay
I’m a contestant on a TV game show,
and the host says I must spin a roulette wheel.
I must look into the camera and speak into the mike.
I must grin and say hello to America.
I must answer questions about myself
with yes or no. The audience groans or applauds.
Now I must pause for a commercial.
Now I have won a big black Cadillac—
the chauffeur, Death, the fixtures polished chrome.
The radio plays my favorite elegy.
Various premium luxuries include satin upholstery
and the comfort of no pain.
Among my other fabulous prizes is a free trip
to nowhere. I will depart on the last day
of this life, the first of the next.
I must look into the camera and speak into the mike.
I must grin and wave goodbye to America.
Island of Wak-Wak (a Swedish publisher) will release Ken Anderson’s The Ward at Twilight: Goth Poems by mid-October. Red Ogre Review Books (L.A.) and Liquid Raven Media recently released his The Goose Liver Anthology (Mother Goose meets Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology). His first poetry book was The Intense Lover. Coffin Bell Journal nominated his poem “Blood Quartet” for the 2024 Best of the Net anthology. He was a finalist in the 2021 Saints and Sinners poetry contest.
John Dorroh travels whenever he can. He often ends up in people’s kitchens exchanging culinary secrets and tall tales. “Through food there is communion,” he says. Six of his poems were nominated for Best of the Net. Hundreds of others appeared in fine journals such as Kissing Dynamite, River Heron, Feral, Burningword, and North Dakota Quarterly. He once was awarded Editor’s Choice Award from a Midwest journal with a monetary prize large enough for two sushi dinners.