Run, Monkey, Run and Old Friends. Two poems by Michael Curran-Dorsano

Run, Monkey, Run

I’ve seen these days before,
these long, grim, uncertain days,
I’ve seen them play out before me
in waking dreams,
of fallow fields littered
with shells of giant harvest wheels
that turn no crop,
rotten homes, gutted shops,
clouds bellied with soot and ash
engulfing sun,
the masked children run
untouched, unseen, through empty streets,
these days that’ll tumble to weeks
no relief in sight,
visit me now like a death rattle,
black breath from the cradle,
its shadowed fingers spin
threads of time and space,
in dreaming remembrance
of our human race,
into the fraying tapestry
of one Earth, one Fate,
too late, too late,
once more, once more,
I’ve seen these days before.

I never thought I’d see, they’ll say,
the pubs closed down on Paddy’s Day,
the pasta shelves in Italy
picked and stripped and bartered empty,
the President of The United States
shake infected hands with the human race,
I never thought I’d see the day.
I never thought I’d see, they’ll say,
I never thought
I never thought
I never I
I never why
I never knew
I used to then but
now what now
where to and you
and you and you and I
they’ll say,
there still must be away,
there still must be
there still must please
no empty shelves
no empty shells
no empty streets
no dead dreams that sleep
in headlines that creep
through pubs and presidents
to screens, no resonance
the frequency is garbled now,
the channel is stuck on

An oceanic current changing direction, a tide pulling back to crash against the shores of its creator. The point of convergence, the energy of our choices, individual, collective, past, present, future colliding, its gale force winds riding the needle of the Doom’s Day Clock to the threshold of midnight. A synthesis of our near-sight. The buying, the selling, the lies we keep telling to escape with the herd, keeps trucking on to the sweet song of our shepherd singing distraction, reaction, fear, and hatred. Centuries we ’ve cut, drained, burnt and pillaged, remolded the Earth in our vacant image. Life pushing back. A pandemic, a global market collapse, storms bearing down on Galway night after night unlike anything this Island nation has seen, groceries stores picked clean, borders shuttered, those words uttered again and again. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Now we must return to clay, reform to this violent, ever changing world. The Old Gods of wind and rain, of sky and branch, of earth and flame, sing again their ancient refrain, we apes, we wild, selfish apes, we must pray it is not too late. The clocks ticking. Time to run. It’s what we were born to do. So run, monkey, run.

……………………

Old Friends

I hear their voices clearer now,
the thrums of their troubles and the bubbles
of their hopes through the crackle of my speaker phone,
as the world goes mute around me
what hid beneath the static
of oncoming traffic,
of deadlines and missed signs
of economic decline
slowly rises to the surface,
the treble of friendship’s true purpose,
a crescendo of memory,
booming bass of old reveries,
the staccato of silence broken
by little truths you dared not speak,
safe at last they peak from closets and pantries
tucked away beneath the stairs,
your little bits and bobbles
you quarantined long before
the pub doors closed, speak
weak at first, but bolder each passing day
that the world quiets in wait, listening
with idle ears to the music that always lingered
beneath the static.

……………………

Michael Curran-Dorsano is an actor and writer from Minnesota. A graduate of The Juilliard Drama Division, and currently earning his MA in Writing at National University Ireland Galway.