To Saint Jake of Johns By Billy Finnegan

Idk what it is you want me to 

talk about here not 

sure what I’m doing. 

I left before I found a voice 

and been whispering ever since. 

Do I talk about the leukemia that 

Bruiser Brody’d through my system like so many Japanese crowds? Or wax poetically upon a page when waxing folically has been my strong suit these past days? 

I’m not sure what comes through pages anymore, I have 

so many questions and so little time to spend on them. 

Is there reason to search for truth? 

Better off waking each morning to feel my highs and lows stretch through my toes and 

breathe a new light through shades of gray. 

If at all comfort taken through texts and updates whenever 

my phone pings with tales of your adventures and support. 

I guess that’s for the best 

while I wrestle thoughts like so many elbow drops from life’s top rope. 

Years travel and time ticks with so many itches I haven’t got enough fingers to scratch 

but hey, thanks for being a friend, Dorothy. 

Yours truly, Rose. 

   -Billy Finnegan

Billy Finnegan, the self-proclaimed “Pirate’s Poet”, is the founder and co-editor of …like this, a poetry zine circulating through out New England. Finnegan’s poetry has appeared in …like this, Elephant, Rootdrinker, Temper, Siren, Flying Fish, Fell Swoop, Out of Our, and various broadsides through Benevolent Bird Press. He is a member of the New Bedford Poets as well as a frequent participant in New Bedford’s Whaling City Review