I always admitted the possibility that the labyrinth form
I always saw as the image of both healing and creativity
might in fact be interlocking symbiosis but such vague,
high level abstraction never meets the path of real traction
until my labyrinth quest in mental best created such deft
dizzying designs I was forced to use my many, many decades
of very physical training as left-right left right you hadda
a good home but you left we walk only by balancing our
selves on one foot your left your left you’re right there in a
double spiral our labyrinth core deep in inner ear that is
our internal sense of balance whether you’re conscious of it
or not simply by walking these narrow paths narrowing some
times to razor’s edge where is the trail of healing flesh and
where grows the capacity to endure all this repetitive stress.

 

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.