-the Phealan Requiem-

Jimmy Phealan

Had something go wrong.

Something snapped.

Out of Harvard

He was unremarkable and safe.

Some said he once drove
A late model Mercury convertible,

Had a good paying job, a good-looking wife

And that his family had money.
Some said it was an aneurism.

The less articulate said stroke.

Some said he simply went crazy

And for a time was institutionalized in Taunton

Due to a medical finding of schizophrenia.

Jimmy walked the length of Bedford Street

Reciting passages from Shakespeare,

Certainly not to us, that would have been futile,

But quietly, inwardly as to enlighten oneself.

He'd pass by on the sidewalk as we sat on the grass

Street-side at the right field fence of the ballpark, playing "High,

Low, Jack and Game" with a fresh deck.

Jimmy's shirts seemed to always miss its first button-slot

So all the buttons running down were off by one

And the fly of his pants was usually stopped

half-way to the top of its mark.

I remember him as being tall and slender,

Six feet tall at least, white hair with strands of yellow
Gliding upward at the frontal wave, walking in long strides,

Drool and Shakespeare flowing from his mouth,

Stepping into his own space of life on the way

To someplace no one else could reach.

Some said he was simply nuts.

Some taunted him albeit gently

In ignorant humiliation and maybe

It penetrated his sensibilities. 

Some never knew Jimmy Phealan.

Some that did have forgotten him

In an easement of conscience.

But not the skinny kid

Sitting at the chain-link fence holding spades

In a diamond-studded field.

Not that kid, Jimmy. I swear. Not him.

                                           Fall River