"Don't put things off…it may be later than you think."
“Rain, Dear?”
Splatters drip abundant
Down sloped trolley exoskeletons
Wintering coats repel most water…
But, not all
Surgical masks punctuate the crowd
Riders on then off
The catastrophe of a wet commute
Hangs soggy on the brows of all
“Counsel of the Crowd”
Boston Common jury pool
Sitting just to wait
Impaneled peers passing by
Hundreds of thousands of judgments
Rendered unconsciously
The horde wills itself
Despite small protests
Barrister bums profess innocence
Regardless of their guilt
Happy clams waiting to be plucked
Away from an unjust motion
To dismiss outright, doubt
Just is
Thumbs are on the scales
Just is
Only pretending to be blind
Just is
She’s in it for the handicapped placard
Just is
Courting the illusion
Writing to sit
Peers passing disaffected
Pooling common
Just is
Years ago, when I was a wee lad, my grandfather, Alexander Ignatius Connolly, used to sit me on his knee and teach me “ditties”.
In my family, a ditty is a crude variation of a commonly known song, with lots of word interchange and improvisation.
Around this time of year he was keen on getting me to sing “The Night Before the Fourth”.
He would clap his hands, and move his index finger up and down in time with the singing. I think he had grand dreams of being the famous Alexander of the Ragtime Band.
The best part for me, was watching him laugh like hell when he got myself or my sister to repeat off-colored lyrics. It was a great victory for him, and from my experience, there is nothing cuter or funnier than a kid dropping some profanity without knowing that they are being naughty.
So, for Alexander Ignatius Connolly, this one’s for you.
Please sing the BOLDED words to yourself, using the “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” jingle.
The night before the fourth.
The night before the fourth.
The cat shit in the shavings.
The cat shit in the shavings.
The cat shit in the shavings, the night before the fourth.
This was usually followed up with a quick question/answer poem:
Listen! Listen!
The cat’s pissing.
Where? Where?
Under the chair.
Quick! Quick!
Get the gun.
All, hell, he’s all done.
“Sand Thrift”
Sweaty seaweed merkin
Tubular carbuncular barnacle
Surf’s up
Swell roaring
Waved in, waved on
Horizon plied with UV radiation
Québécois down for holiday
Sipping seltzers while passing judgment
On body positive ‘Muricans
Every breaking wave supplying sobriety
Salt infused air blowing way by
The downward smell of tide approaches
Sand creeping into every crevice
Grinding out pearls
For shells to covet
Wetly moist wetsuits
Hiding disparities
Musty smell of musk mollusk
Creepy beach bum listening to “Goodbye Horses”
Slide the shore in parallax error
Breezy foam blowing upon dreams like birthday candles
Long cold beers quenching patch
Art among the sand denizens
A good day’s sun soon rolls on
“Wind Phone”
I had heard tales of a wind phone
Somewhere in Japan
Talk to your dead loved
They said
I bought a plane ticket
I flew on the wind
I found the wind phone
It was somewhere in Japan
I waited in the queue
My turn finally came
I approached the booth with trepidation
It was white
That is to say the booth was dreadful white
And there was a small neatly organized table
Organized in precision in only the way a small Japanese table could be
Upon it was a phone
Black and dull
What was once shiny glossy
Passed through thousands upon thousands of hands
Hand to ear
Mouth to word
Word to air
Not ears…
Wind phone!
Talk to your dead loved
They said
Only, I chose differently
I didn’t talk to my Father
Dead these eight years
I didn’t talk to my Mother
Dead these twelve years
I didn’t even speak to the baby we lost between my first son and my first daughter
Perhaps, his name was Hieronymus
No, I spoke to no dead loved
But, I put my words into the wind phone
Hoping the wind would find the ears of my second son, Paul
He is minimally verbal
But, luckily for us, more verbal than most
I try to persuade the wind with my silver tongue
Persuade it to unlock the mystery of my second son
Who often releases words on the wind,
Hoping those words unlock some type of understanding between us
As I look out over a Japanese valley
The wind carries my words away
Not to be heard,
Nor understood
The wind phone holds me silent
As I wait for a connection
Whether my second son was there
Or ten thousand miles away,
Our words are carried over the wind
And, pass us by.
Blowing fierce into the stratosphere
Carrying our DNA back to the stars that we came from
Out to somewhere where our dead loved
Are rejoined in a Big Bang connection
As I hung up the phone
I looked backward at the queue,
And felt shame for my wind blasphemy
I had to try
Before I myself become dead loved
I hope they can forgive me—
I hope Paul can forgive me—
I then thought to myself…
That maybe sometimes not being able to talk to your dead loved
Is not as bad as not being able to talk to your alive loved
“Waiting in Good Faith”
It happened again
A summer not as planned
Bug bites in the single digits
Sunburns of no consequence
Waiting for something else
To
Happen
Hoping certain certainties avoid
Protecting those we love from life
And the harm of thoughtless folks
Libertines have become civil libertines
And exact destruction
When passing through the self-checkout line
Not wanting to wait in long lines
Circumventing the gradual path
Because…
People die from the consumption
But, not that consumption
Animals of learned habits
Bad habits
Stain the narrative
A story told
Obfuscating
A selling sexy self-lies
That only we ourselves believe
To get to the next instance
Where choice
Or, it’s illusion
Stammers, sputters, and relents
Waiting for a break
Waiting in good faith
“Treebeard”
Roots red riot
Reaching up into a stratosphere
Wagging straw doodles
An itch not scratchable
Forming a Bedouin burning bush
Pandemic nettles preventing tight seals
Masking my contempt of you, at you
There isn’t a light apparent at the end of this tunnel
Nowhere to go but up
Breathless
“Stripped of Memory”
The memory of this place consigns its pain to me
A bunch of grapes plucked off,
Empty sprigs form quiet stress
Place-holding taunts and barbs,
The burnt toast ghost of treasured anticipation
Who will remember what I can’t?
When I can no longer bear witness
Such is the narrative:
A leaf blows off a bridge
After having been stuck
And dances the air
Until it comes to float on restless waters
Carried away to be counted among other forgetful forgottens
“The Misery Of Society”
The misery of society
Resides in sobriety
Of peer pressure sanctioned
Social media propriety
The goal is correction
By way of projection
Behavior game wardens
Chastising selection
What causes offense?
Despite the events
Or mind’s eye abstraction
Devoid of pretense?
A champion scolder
A high holy roller
Supposing to know
All that is kosher
Here is the trick
Mister Etiquette
The perception of correction
Is solely your shtick
A word to the wise:
Should be no surprise
Keep your thoughts to yourself
We don’t need your advice
Nor do we need
On all thoughts to agree
I’ll say what I like
Despite your unease
The misery of society
Resides in sobriety
Of peer pressure sanctioned
Social media propriety
“The World Is Ripe Fucking Madness”
The world as seen from a half-baked moon
Often appears innocuous
In truth, it is besought with ruin
Contradictory ideas imponderous
Sages and mystics shouted down
The mob’s will absolute
Traveling through a wounded world
Holding hard to ignored truths
Lonely, lonely common sense
Is commonly uncommon
Withdrawn within self-defense
A disillusioned Brahmin
Floating in the cosmic void
A world ripe with fucking madness
As others nurture schadenfreud
Most end swallowed up by sadness
