Thomas O'Connell


A Small Poem, Which is an Obituary

Dear Yves Tanguy
Magicians
Map out our passions
I wonder what science would say

If you painted
Creatures of
Living mercury?
Fascists cut up the newspapers

Which then become
Your ashes,
Kept inside a jar
Low tide exposes skeletons
We are willing to consider spectral evidence



Someday There Will be Paper Dolls That Look Like You

I saw you
In a stained glass window
Shuffling a deck of cards

I saw you
At the horse’s grave
With an apple
And a Confederate flag

I saw you
Sitting on a street corner
Counting bicycles in the rain

I’ll see you again

I’ll see you again



What the Kittens Made

When the gates open
You focus on the mirror
Ignoring the sand

A horse behind glass
Wrapped in bandages

Red berries over tarmac
We are suspended
The factory meets the shore



A Jury of My Fears

Only false prophets and telemarketers call
Anymore, I pass the hours
Removing fruit from a still life and
Lamenting lies I thought of too late

Night is nearer than the morning
We are now free to be new animals

I blame the circus
Insolent girls on bicycles
Voodoo drums in drugstores
Zebras reflected in the eyes of lions

Wishful thinking produces nothing
                              But singing birds.



Sisyphus Speaks to the Stone

Here we go again
Here we go again
Here we go again
Here we go again
Here we go again
Here we go again
Here we go again




Thomas O'Connell is a librarian, as well as three time Pushcart Prize Nominee, and his poetry and short fiction have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Caketrain, A-Minor, and Elm Leaves Journal, as well as other print and online journals.
 
 
previous page     contents     next page