I tried hard to ignore it, but still there it was
even before Thanksgiving a persistent buzz
Black Friday they kept on saying just because
no one can turn back that dirty daily drudge
Somehow accumulates tippy house of cards
and still tamp down those emotional shards
and try discover appropriate words of bards
and try to forgive the provocations of lords
Of empire every way we chance to try to turn
commercial trap hastens the world that burns
so in our very brains this pain that just churns
in our very bellies second brain it’s such a stern
Taskmaster of all we are really supposed to do
as we are just there still trying on the other shoe.
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.