He didn’t have time to write
He had to work
He had to eat
Writing was a luxury
For college boys
For rich kids
For those who had nothing to say
He didn’t have time to write
He had to work
Had to feed and clothe
He didn’t have time to dream
Time to entertain the crowd
Who prattled and pattered
After drama and rumor and swooned
Over pencil thin mustaches
Tuxedos and push-up bras
He didn’t have time for nonsense
Didn’t have time to play
He went to work
When he was eight years old
He didn’t have time to write
He had to earn what he could
Nothing was given to him
Except the last rites
When he was twelve years old
Pneumonia and nothing
To be done but plan the funeral and
Wait He had to work
He didn’t have time to die or write
He had to dig and serve
For rich kids
He had to eat
He had to feed
His brothers and sister and mother
His father digging somewhere
Prospecting with a bottle
He didn’t have time to write
But he stole time
To read time
To drink and think
He didn’t have the mind to drink
With the right people
With the In Crowd
That class who looked down on his kind
He didn’t have time to read
Between the lines
Or lube the greasy wheels
Whose pantries overflowed
With moldy loaves
While they sneered
Bemoaned and groaned
About the god-awful sounds
Of the growls from the street
Those empty belly roars
Of the filthy brats
Walking by outside
Seen through sheers and lace
He didn’t have time to write
He had nothing
To say
That anyone would buy
And he had to provide
He had to eat so
He had to work
He could hear the cries
Of his little sister and brother
He didn’t know how to write that
Down He felt that ache
In the pillow-muffled sounds
From his mother’s midnight bunk
He didn’t have time to invent
Those words for pain
Like Frank McCourt
He had to work
And what time he stole
He stole to read because
He didn’t have time to write
He had nothing
To say
Isn’t it obvious that
He was a poet
Who didn’t have time to work
And write since he didn’t
Have time to dream
He let Martin Luther King
Junior do that for him
Back when he was fifteen
He joined the CCC’s
He didn’t have time to write
He had to go to work
Turned down a scholarship
To the University to play
Basketball and rub elbows
With the In Crowd
And maybe write poetry
Because he was a poet
But he didn’t have time for that shit
He had to pay the rent
He didn’t have time to dally with words
When he took a wife
Made a child
Was drafted into that good war
The big one
Not the one to end all wars
The second one
The one after the end
When dead civilians took center stage
Eclipsed the soldiers
In the body count race
No he didn’t have time to write
About all the death he carried
He had to work
He had a family
To support
To feed and clothe
So he didn’t have time to write
About the pope blessing
Mussolini’s bombs and planes
About the corpses stacked
Like cord wood along the tracks
He stole time to read
To argue
To disagree with the celebration
Of civilization’s victory
He drank
Passionately
After all he was a poet
With no time to write
He needed that time to drink
And work and think a bit
Did I mention he had to work
And feed and clothe Also
He had to bury his mother and dad
In their bullshit and beads
Had to bury Kennedy Bobby
Medgar Malcolm Gandhi
Drink or drown in a sea of blood
The wealthy sailed in golden boats
He had to bury his dream
Keeper Martin Luther King
Chose drowning in drink
A dress rehearsal for The Escape
Got ready to crumble into dust
He didn’t have time to write
He was a poet
Who never wrote
A self-made political scholar
Just another wage slave
A blue-collared white nigger
Powerless as children and women
A guy who couldn’t even steal
Time to read
Wouldn’t permit himself time to dream
Yet he was a visionary
He was a force
An Irish-American class warrior
He was a drunken poet
Who never took time to write
He was just a man
A son and a distant husband
A piss-poor soldier and complex
Dad He had responsibilities
So he worked and drank
He was honest and liked
By most feared by the masks
A smart witty-sad angry man
Just ask me
My father told me
Everybody loves their old man
They have to
Because he’s their dad
The Old Man
The only one they’ll ever have
No matter
What kind of a son-of-a-bitch he is
My Old Man was a poet
But he didn’t have time to write
He had to work and drink
And moan alone when
He thought no one heard
He taught me to rebel
Or maybe that was in my DNA
But I realized poetry
On the page
So when I found a diary
He kept for a few days
During WWII
I thought I’d share it with you
For me and my dad
Long dead
And no way to stop me
From showing you he was
We are all poets
March 15, 1945—
Been working
Like Hell
These last few months
I must weigh
Around 170 lbs now
And have had the piss
Scared out of me
Quite a few times
During that break
Through—the Bulge
They have lost
A lot of men and
It’s all bullshit
He was twenty-seven
By then he’d been working
For almost twenty years
Summers he’d hayed
For ranches up the Big Hole
So he knew bullshit
When he smelled it
And he knew war
Because he’d smelled it
He spoke poetry
Read it and knew it
But he’d never say that
He was a poet
Who leaned more toward Service
Than Longfellow
He didn’t have time to rhyme
Because he grew up
In the Cabbage Patch
On eggs and potatoes
Shanty Montana-Irish His dad
Dug and drank and dreamed
My father didn’t
Have time to dream
His family had to eat
So he had to go to work
At whatever he could get
And work overtime at
Not taking any shit
Class warfare was a tradition
And in his DNA
Like whiskey
So he had to hope
I’d know what to say
When I sat down to write
And I know my hope
Is walking behind
Me in someone else’s shoes
And their voices are strong
And their arms are true
And their children’s children
Will give peace its days
Under the sun and will
Raise a glass or three
Of Irish whiskey
To an ancestor from the 20th Century
An unrealized poet
Who never wrote
But worked at being
As good as his words and hands
My heroic and liquored-up
Dad The Old Man
These days may be remembered
