Bigshot With A Dozen Roses & Other Poems
By Michael Igoe
Bigshot With A Dozen Roses
After he hangs on
to a rain check
a severed stub.
He finds ways
to defend himself
on the stairwells
paying for things
with just stipends.
We already know
how he sent you
one dozen roses.
They serve as grim reminders
of the times he hungered
to crowd your vacant place
with another lewd angel.
He collects every image
your makeshift poses
when dressed in persimmon.
Pearl Harbor Day
Today we welcome
our mournful intruder.
To abide in our woes
slave over our sinks,
anticipate the cure
from chocolate bars.
Their thin auras
dim our headlights
by rockets’ red glare.
Thirsting for sweetness
we need to deafen
every single sound
a familiar clutch.
A penalty imposed
in the wanton stage
of disaster so utter.
Odd that we notice,
mud caked thickly
at the bottom of boots
flies in clusters on a wall.
Radio voices are resigned
to hand out the impression
no penalty is to be extracted
in a sky full of dive bombers.
Pledge
It appears as raw gold,
it’s midway through
another fight for honor.
its weight hangs
from a thin red cord
to brood over dreams
of a childhood remnant
over and over
You say you’re at home,
but it’s a home only
for feline scratches.
Michael Igoe: City boy, Chicago-now-Boston, neurodiverse, instructor at Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation. Erstwhile scholar, cat enthusiast. Longtime member of the Democratic National Committee. Regular contributor to Spare Change News (Cambridge, MA). Enthusiast of urban realism and surrealism.