things we don’t talk about
things we don’t dare talk about
things we don’t dare talk about
everything is so scandalous
everyone throws up their shoulders
                shrugs their hands
and says, “That’s just the way it is”
                              I guess

 

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.