Bill lived for two or three years with his first wife, Joyce
in New York City in the 1950’s in a house of female impersonators
and across the hall lived a prize-fighter who became a cross-dresser, too
who would go down to the waterfront and pick up sailors and beat the crap
out of them if they wouldn’t have sex with her.

And then there was:

Tom — internationally known fine artist,
work hanging in China who trapped in an alley
by a mugger told his attacker, “if you’re such a man
go over to the brick wall and punch a hole in it “ and,
of course, the guy did and broke his 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.