In America, politics and angels only meet
In Satan who lives out at the State Park
And then shows up late for trick and treat
Or worse when a kitty is killed for a lark

In remote areas way off the beaten path
Of personal experiences of the holy divine
And the place right between sensory math
And all the categories that we then define

With limits of language and it’s just the way
We see Mom and Dad and whatever is fair
And fowl all wrapped up in those rainbow rays
With feathers sticking up in a crazed dare

To do what can’t be done out there on the run
No place to go even so just look at the schmoe
Who’s got a whole party while we’ve got none
And turns around to talk about what we all owe

To them but most of all to our very own selves
Who say over and over again the same refrain
They’re both the same even as we still delve
Through all the stories of suffering and pain

The incarcerated masses, life support refugees
The homeless horde, pandemic burial ground
The abusive relationship, the fatal finality fee
They pretend is free on the ropes in last round

Nothing ever so different when we’re all so stuck
With the one that revels in blatant power abuse
The one that never even bothers to give a fuck
And the other one that can’t even light the fuse.

 

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.

 In America, politics and angels only meet