We’re just playing Frisbee
after my son’s mandatory Whopper
over by the guy with a rope around his neck
attached to a small gibbet
and wrapped in a shroud
with red blood like spots
in front of each word
which read down his body
. Victim
.Of
.Khomeini
.Firing
.Squads
A demonstrations protesting
British rubber bullets
trails its way past
Black Muslims who are out decrying
“Graven Images which seek to portray GOD” and
“how would you feel if you had to worship
a black Jesus for three hundred years?
The Irish and Afro-Americans pass each other
without so much as a wink of humor.
And then in the midst of all the working class kids
hanging out, smoking joints, and kicking balls
the Guardian Angels appear ready for the finale.
They do jumping jacks and push-ups on their fists
and for an encore pick up the Iranian victim
and deposit him and the gibbet in the trash can.

 

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.