After the last abusive episode
it’s always the last abusive episode
syncopated bubble burst in tandem
with strategic administration of violence
and great gobs of threat and intimidation
every normal day a feat of existential survival
crawling on knees then belly nose to the grindstone
wearing away in the grinding field of friction
dissipating into the evaporating ether
and then nothing, just nothing at all
nothing absolutely every where
and there you are again
and there they are
and there we are
all together
altogether
healing
one

 

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.