We all knew the Hippies were just next wave
Of the Beats and the Beats were really Bohemians
We’d read the Romantics in school you know
And they claimed primitives as antecedents
In fact they headed for the Lake District
And other remote strange hard to reach places
Even the Frankenstein monster ended up
Leaping from ice block to flow in the Arctic Circle
But it was definitely a leap to realize the first book
Itself the Holy Scripture, you got it the Bible,
Was really a counter-cultural tract
But then there were always those places
In the text where you went “why is that in there”
And suddenly the long lists and royal lineages
Erupt into God seething to leave the temple
And asking the people if they really want a King
(like all the other nations they seek to emulate)
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. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.