listen the storm passes
it howls around corners
themselves are a noisy bunch

we feel the rising wet cloud
the bolls of leaves unwrap
water activates the dormant fungi

frost draws birds and bees
the migrants seek nourishment
deportees carry the culture

culture becomes a long march
a forced march in forever war
homeless on the empty Common

Heaven a forgotten dream time
of the black hole long scream
modernity Current Age scam

everything need done impossible
Sisyphean political lack of process
tasks our very common sense

deportees carry the culture
migrants seek nourishment
refugees huddle down and wait

 

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.