Here we are caught dead in the middle
of the stage of late imperial implosion
collapsing the more they Make America
great again faster than vanishing Nation
State of suspended emulsion the catalyst
responds to each tiny antisocial whirligig
vortex around the ever more exclusionary
seeds of ignorance and prejudice just mis-
understands actually mis-under-estimates
the power, of and to, every action there is
automatically the equal opposite reaction
the more the do-do the more they create
opposition chaos theory of terror action
of how the tsunami forms on incline slope
of beach or sea tide behaves in maelstrom
whirlpool of a drain to nowhere nohow no
way sans what if sans imagine what could
be something else other essence and true
existence of self where I’m here with every
one and announcements start to tell us that
Winter Walk has been snow delayed 2 hours
but we’re in that netherworld of subliminal
delay always causes the unexpected to arrive
ever more insistent in its very own schedule
and somehow we will continue to sort out
our real life from this flurry of such fantasy
falling like the snow, that snows us so under
and so blinded by the light on all that white.

 

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.