That’s just the way it is now
that all the masks are so off
even though nothing changes
a Halloween all hallows eve
skeletons coming up everywhere
wearing Patriot famous numbers
and Bruins and Celtic t-shirts
and those super immune system
bats & spiders, cobwebs & caves
no wonder everyone is too afraid
to talk about what’s so really going
on and on and on again and again
showing all of us their true colors
there’s Jolly Roger & the skull and
crossbones X marks the exact spot
to which pure projection has led us
yes, we’re out on the old borderline
with the lazer screens blazing away.

 

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.