Crawling out of my spiral shell
self forged of pandemic climate
change as we find it in hot hell
& sink below survival prime rate

The towers have risen, the people
have fallen into world of confusion
where angels haunt the old steeples
and this is just price privatization

Our bombs fall in Gaza & Tehran
& Beirut shredded human bodies
gathered pieces white forms on sand
dotted with the full measure of loss

Last life blood and senseless death
crying to us from ancient ground
with the pathos of wasted breath
issuing such long mournful sound

I hear it whistling thru the towers
of drive by shooting great powers.

 

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.