FORTUNE TOLD
No sweet dreams tonight
for having kept the moon awake.
Only misfortune and heartache heard for miles
such sad talk among those lonely pines.
A green-eyed black cat
claws shredding the breast of a dead crow,
bits of feather resting
on the whiskers of that hungry feral, just about sums
up my mood here, waiting on a falling star
promised by the gypsy fortune teller, said
to be arriving by midnight.
The falling star, that is.
Two fingers of rum and a silver dollar
buys you a weeks worth of dreams.
Word was, she read a palm well, so
with that in mind and a bottle in hand
I aimed to staying put, waiting
on a falling star every goddamned night.
Her readings they said were nearly
always precise, a swamp raised Cajun
she was, but, given the goings on
out deep in dark country woods, things
could get strange, making prophecies a challenge.
No matter how good the rum or fortune teller.
Just about the time I had
pulled a last swig, bottle
stretched to drink all night,
not yet did I catch sight of my falling star
about the stroke of midnight, but I did see
a barrel chested barn owl, a real big bird
he was, circling the cabin belonging to the trapper,
McSharry.
Holy shit and sure enough, when I looked
twice, my pocket watch had stopped!
Straight up on twelve.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” I thought.
“Could she be right?”
Then, as if to answer, I heard screams
silenced by a shotgun blast lighting up the night.
The barn owl flew South, fast, in hazy white moonlight.
That’s when I saw him, crazy Mossy McSharry
walking my way wild-eyed with a lantern shining,
free hand gripping a still hot smoking
shotgun, and by his side a howling Irish wolfhound.
Well, I tell you
Christ be crucified twice before I die
if I did not behold a falling star above him!
Just as the gypsy spoke. Dead on midnight.
McSharry was coming!
And coming right fast for me now,
with murder in his eyes.
I was born across the bridge from Boston, Massachusetts, in Cambridge, as July 4th fireworks exploded over the Charles River, just a stone’s throw from Harvard University. At age two, my family moved to Somerville, Ma.,where I was raised in a rough blue-collar environment, playing many sports. In 1998 I relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada. Here, I work among special needs children and teach martial arts. Poetry began in high school, but took off in a more dedicated way in later years, along with resuming music studies, guitar. My poems are published in various anthologies; including Impressions, Prism, and the Mighty Voices Of Thunder Series, sponsored by the international poetry website, “Allpoetry.” I was a featured poet in Lyrical Somerville February 2015, a Boston based publication, as well as being an “Editor’s Front Page Pick,” for the month of March 2016 on Allpoetry. A defining moment that contributed significantly to further interest in writing was a First Place Award from the International Poetry Fellowship, for my poem, “Among Fields of Cotton.” Presently, I am happy to have the opportunity to explore various forms of poetry with Mr. Bruce Isaacson, Poet Laureate of Clark County Nevada.