MORGAN DRISCOLL - POEMS

Morgan Driscoll is teaching himself about poetry while living in Connecticut. He recently discovered that the word for this is “Dilettante” and is pleased because it sounds french. He has been published occasionally and obscurely, although there seems to be a good cross section of his work available to read for anyone who googles his name along with the key word “poetry”. 

RECOVERING HOMOPHOBE

​The fear just really never went away of 
someone different but the same,
whose passions are equivalent
but aimed at something opposite
to preferences my own body 
will allow.

I work at understanding every day:
my family, friends, and strangers, 
my father, passed away these
three years now. I think I understood
him decently but still, I hide my eyes
from photos of his naked boyfriends.

Dad’s computer was a minefield 
and I wish he had a better way to label files but 
I wish he hadn’t died in discreet steps as well.
I wish I understood the human heart, libido, soul,
and our naughty bits which can
get us into so much trouble.

At twelve a man’s hand cupped my face
as I, an unaccompanied minor flew
to visit somewhere I’d been sent. He told me he
was helping with my cabin pressure headache
but I knew
what inappropriate meant.

At sixteen I was in my bed asleep,
a man was visiting from overseas-
some candidate for PHD, someone that
my father once had met. 
My room contained the only bed for guests. 
I told my Dad and Mom and later on, that man had left.

Standing in the concourse of Grand Central
once when I was seventeen
a gentleman approached, so interested in me
naive and parent free, his curiosity
was evident in how he followed
when I tried to leave.

At twenty-one I kissed a pretty girl
who had no interest in my kiss,
and turned away as I continued 
to insist and hold her close to me
and told her she, mis-understood 
her own desires. 

When I started my own business I brushed the arms of  
female hires as I spoke to them. 
I told myself it had to do 
with my communication skills and not 
some psychosexual power thrill.
But maybe I know better now.

I hate the men who used me in and for my youth.
Their addled bodies changing them 
into alarming brutes, reinforcing bias 
towards a group attacked with bigotry, and I 
learning to find pleasure in dislike of something unlike me;
ignorant of my own truths.I wonder if my sins have caused
damage lasting over years,
irrational and complex fears or hatred aimed
at innocence, past 
anytime it might have made 
any kind of sense. 

And here’s a man who’s speaking of his husband, 
and it makes me feel uneasy 
placing words in places that
they didn’t used to be, instead of maybe 
wondering if someone else can try to have a try 
to crack the code of trying 
to be happy. 

ACCORDING TO HIS NEEDS

​I like to think I weep a bit inside my solitude. 
Sequestered, surveying, —how I mourn--
generic suffering from privy rooms. I’m good
for a hundred or two considering 
when you happen to catch me. 
It’s better to not distract me from 
my poetry though.

I’ve done my bit, what more to do? 
Five children fed and taught to legal age, just think 
how they’ll contribute 
to the commonweal. 
How tired I feel 
feeling tired all the time, not knowing 
what else for me to do. I vote

make calls, brush fingers on occasional
homeless hands. I march somewhere for
imprisoned men. 
The justice that I want to want for them--
I want it now 
and shout it out in crowds 
or at least inside the silence of my solitude.

I feel such guilt that I’ve done so well, I will
gladly give up money, time, and talents trying hard 
to even out the field.
But, how much is enough to make a difference or
at least enough to help me think of something more
than these problems
that I’m not responsible for.

Who doesn’t lift their family, 
friends and colleagues first?
Don’t I deserve a little time reserved
for my own growth? 
I didn’t ask for comfort, it was thrust on me and since
it’s such a humankind priority, it might just be a sin
to try ignoring it.

So I think I’m given privilege to say
in this ironic, or un-ironic way,
that Its hard out here for tall white men
living in Connecticut; 
my eyes are blue to boot.
I’m told that pain is pain… you can’t compare,
and that costs a lot to get to hear
when the premium, is factored in. 

TURNING THE SPIGOT

​A group of men removing
oil from the ground,
drilling in West Texas basins, 
dry and ancient.
As serious as shale they speak
in oiled voices
of the managing of resources,
market forces,
varied courses of response to public oversight.
Sober and severe,
earnest, urgent, sincere and grave
the charts are placed
in ballrooms of investors
with modest gestures
and resonance of provincial tones. 
There are no unknowns
and little area of concern. 
So let the money flow 
amid soft carpets, sharp wainscot, and quiet coffee urns. 

VICE ADVICE

​This outrage feels so good I should
thank those guys for rolling coal,
poisoning shared air so bold to troll
the libs and so well done - well done!
you’ve got my heart-rate up and up
til now I’ve had an un-engaging day. 

They say
that someone’s referenced race to make a case
for something in the paper so I think I’ll savor
every error in their thinking, thinking
indignation’s just the thing to bring
a sense of substance
while I wait for tea to boil. 

Boiling my blood 
is therapy to me I see to it
injustice just is, just a click
away. The news feed feeding
me a steady stream of steaming
vitriol is all I need to knead 
my belly in a knot

it’s not
the only way I hone my virtue
virtually immersing in the
awful things the awful do;
but do you know 
a better way to placate all the hate 
I seem to need to need:
an addiction that I’d rather not admit to?

​CONNECTICUT WAR MEMORIAL

​My village has a monument, 
where every soldier from the town
who died in war across the sea,
or across the Mason Dixon line,
or maybe in the next town up, in the Revolution,
gets to have their name engraved 
in granite.

They start northwest 
fighting French and Indians.
Name follows name 
across the continents and
down and down, along six polished slabs
stopping only halfway down the last, 
unbalanced, 
in Afghanistan.

The town has always liked to have a plan.