My name is Terry Fitzpatrick
I see familiar faces all around
Perhaps some long lost relatives
Still in County Cork who could be found

My grandfather, James William Fitzpatrick
Made his way to South Boston, Mass,
Just like thousands of Irish refugees
Was looked down upon as low class

“We don’t hire the Irish”
Signs posted on many a door
So he played piano and wrote songs
To feed his family of four

Side by Side and Beer Barrel Polka
Were 2 of his most famous songs
He sold the rights for so little
Few dollars, no credit, so wrong...

He had left County Cork in a hurry
Like thousands forced to leave town
His family, I’m told, were horse thieves
But The Famine’s what took them down

The Troubles continued in Boston
Fifty years before the Kennedys were crowned
My Grandfather kept drinking and singing
Grandmother died young without a sound

One of their 4 sons was my father
Clifford Joseph then had 4 sons and me
I’m proud of my Irish heritage
First one back to visit since 1893

I dislike Spring pruning
All those dead branches that must be stripped
To bear good fruit, so necessary
I’m no Master Gardener
I’ve made mistakes before, confused
Choosing which ones to cut away
Which ones I should let stay
Make no mistake
With proper pruning the Springtime sun
Magnificently promises
Seemingly spent branches
Flowing silently, secretly with new sap
New buds, fresh leaves and blossoms
And delectable new fruit
Fruit so succulent
Better because of the pruning
May I cut away the dead branches of my life
And may I not mind the pruning
Waiting for the Master Gardener’s promise

There is but one inside each of us,
The magnificent irony that is you,
The gift of emotion and darkness,
Light and the solemn silence.

In each there is a word never spoken,
The lord of his or her pen stroke,
Like a library of dreams
Disclosed to the insensible mind.

In vain with each passing day
The infinite ache of the lifespan
Becomes an accessible garden
And fountains of immersive memory.

And to die is but to awaken,
We toil in the philosophy of words,
Without strength or direction
Writing sorrowful verse.

Haiku, sonnet, free verse,
Stars, skies, oceans, meadows,
All are symbolic to the perceptions
In the void of the eye's twilight views.

Painfully we probe the depth
And fathom the darkness,
Heaven becomes a metaphor,
Hell seems too real, the Power....

Long before me or you,
The dead poets took the dark
And shown them in the light
In his or her fading dusk.

The gallery of poems,
Impalpably dreaded like life,
And we are the dead whom write
Of life in the setting sun.

Power, which had written this poem,
Disfiguring the poet, perpetually dark,
The word speaks through us,
The curse is to observe as it all passes away.

Lady in a gray dress
calling this a wintry mix

A coastal low with rain and sleet

I reckon so, but it sure seems
like the winter blues to me.

I've only got one bar
on my phone and there's only
one more between here and home.
Ten dollars in my pocket may as well
be a thousand. Like a penny
in the fusebox, I could make it last
until the lights go out. There's a cowboy
band playing. A wooden Indian
by the door. I don't think he listens
to their stories anymore. He's quiet
on the subject. He's quite an object
of curiosity. Instead of two-stepping
all night long, maybe I should take
that Indian home. Use the last bar
to call Coleen. Tell her to put a ***
of cowboy coffee on. We'll tell stories
of our own. Sing songs in the old way
about better days when we were young.

The house of my soul
has many rooms,
foundation poured
over many lifetimes,
the layout determined
by some master architect.
Each room has
its own view
of the world.
Cannot say I've changed;
can say
as ages pass,
the rooms inhabited
are not the same.