HoboEye Poetry:
James Shea, Chicago

Parts of an Inland Pier

The boys lie open for a snowfall.

I don’t want to be here for that.

The two boys turn their heads to me.

A thunder-sound somersaults in the sky.

Will they heal? Will they be better?

I drove with my jeep to the beach.

The waves in general were special to me.

I saw them all for a moment at a time.

The two boys woke to their deaths.

They could not give up more.

There is no rhetoric of a storm.

There will be a way to explain what I am saying.

I woke to three geese flying in a loose v.

I could live my whole life right here, in this chair.

Idea of a Mutiny

The girls in groups
would not give me
their walkie-talkies.

I made a question
and brought it to the shore.

The only way I knew
how to get there was to think
I had gone too far
and to keep going.

The sea sort of gleeked on me.

Then I saw my dog
wake up last night—
barking, defending everything
from everything else.

Snow Engine
That evening an incredible
delivery of energy: we folded open
the couch to get at the bed.

I pressed myself into a mirror.
I should have shoveled the entire walk.
I saw myself as a summary of water.

Here, place me wherever.

I made up the whole thing
to protect the animals. They were dying
and I never really let them die.



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