I had to go back to take my heart meds
so coming back I saw the train station
sign saying ‘1’ & just knew I would never
make it in time to catch that train only

When I got inside I see the tiny woman
who I’ve seen around for decades was half-
way down the stairs to the train platform
where some lady was holding the door open

Sticking her arm out of the car so I made
it on board and then the train just sat there
anyway I caught my breath & soon enough
we were rolling out the station thru tunnel

Where I remember my epiphany yesterday
when colonial re-enactor, this fulfillment
of phenomenon re-enactors keeps growing
at least since the 60’s Civil War centennial,

Back when I was in high school I remember
my Uncle Bill Carter talking about being a
6 years old kid in 1931 went to a reenactment
of the Bull Run/ Manassas Battle (on family

Land) and Captain Pickles common character
had told me of the Indian/ Native American
that we call them & their influence on us thru
their tripartite system based on safe dividing

Power to prevent its abuse while here I had
been reading of the Old Grail Legends which
had, had such a great impact on me way back
in the days of a new school fourth grade my

Self in a strange emotionally vulnerable state
after a concussion from high fall off monkey
bars long horizontal ladder, a bar too far that
left me in another world I guess very much like

The magically inculcated events of those ancient
tales of knights searching for this vaporous cup
that is more vision than actual ceramic or glass
vessel these stories set in 6th century dark age

Written 600 years later late 11th century, early
12th centuries when Jerusalem had just been taken
back by Saladin and hierarchical power so crucial
to a beleaguered nascent ‘Christendom’ questing

To go from being surrounded on all exposed sides
by pagans and Muslims to growing world powers
who have struggled ever since just to find the way
to keep greedy imperial power from swallowing

Humanity in what became a long colonial horror
story of slavery and mass murder in all its forms.

 

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.