The Billionaire bully boys have again
(as only they can) issued their final edict
like 1950’s greasers after many, many long hours
on the pinball machine whack-a-mole wars
foreign and domestic, military and econometric
they can now see the final payout, the grandest prize
ever already before their eyes, always in their mind’s eye
which has lain right there now for many tantalizing months
if not years and they’re at that state where they want to slam
wham bang the side of that infernal machine with their big mean
heel of a hammer hand and kick the legs out from under the damn thing
as they throw their full weight of attack dog psychopathic vituperousness
from one media shoulder to other because for them there is no tilt, no tilt
just a very expensive designer heel ready to smash the glass and dent the metal
and raise hell, Holy Hell of their unholy evangelical alliance until the item final
falls down into the fully extended iron claw of their grasping, clasping hand.

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.