chained haiku for Bill Barnum

The truest Peace Dove
Turned lavender in subway
Fluorescent bulb light

Folded just like half
A century of care full
Detailed attention

We’re heading in to
Town again together
To fly the Common

To be in center
To walk Common Labyrinth
Now still here with me

Tiny little man
And bird that hovers just out
Of sight and mind

I used to know
So well but now understand
What a mystery

He’s gone but the rest
Of us must just keep going
On to bitter end…

 

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.