Out of my peripheral corner eye
I would glimpse the Cartesian grid
of the boys, my two young grandsons
as assiduously they stacked & whacked
on their way through survival mode
code of build protective McMansion
before the impending nightfall zombie
forms of Mine Craft so soon a cave
becomes the easiest way one can live
and there we are right at the start
of this vicious circle stretched out
linear as I said and implying vistas
of infinity two lines that never meet
as if these two boys, my grandkids little
guys must live in the Vanishing Point
that ensued when the Gutenberg Galaxy
of Marshall McLuhan imploded in 1000
points of light and glimmers down on us
where a body slam enforces compliance
on the head not bare during the anthem
out on the old gridiron touchy snow
flakes in the heavily armed millennial cult
oh, can the Coliseum save us from games?
can we survive being driven to distraction?

 

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.