The fact is I’m still reeling from the shock
Of having this guy deliberately distract me
While my bag of (note)books was stolen as
I was working in my labyrinth so I looked

Up on finishing to discover he/ it was gone
And in that moment I remembered this guy
Al, he called himself at least to those of us
Who came to our weekly Vigil for Peace and

Human Rights for very many months before
The election 2016 when the electoral college
Selected Dondals the Trumpf! the first time
And then came one more time crowing like

Mad as a Hatter in Alice in Wonderland that
He’d won, the “Orange Man” was in power
And we were just glad or anyway at least I was
We never gave me the microphone not once

Though he begged and begged us as if he just
Knew we had some vital element, some bright
Ray of authenticity he could never hope attain
Even as we were just our own little tiny small

Ad hoc committee of Peace and Human Rights
Stranded on the choppy asphalt infrastructure
Of Boston Common where “they” back in the
Day hanged witches and whipped the dissenters.

 

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.