The HyperTexts

Seamus Cassidy

Seamus Cassidy was born in Chicago in 1943, the fourth of nine children, and grew up in a colonial town in New Jersey, where he enjoyed yearly summer visits from his Irish-born paternal Grandmother who was, like her son, his Uncle, a born storyteller.

During his high school years Cassidy lived on a small truck farm with milk-cows, pigs, chickens, honeybees, an apple orchard and vineyard—all of which he helped to tend. After finishing college and university he embarked on a career as a teacher of History and English in junior high and high school.

Cassidy is now a retired redhead whose editor-mentor describes him as "looking like a happy Robert Frost." He has recently completed writing a soon-to-be-published book of dramatic monologues based on historical characters, with accompanying biographical sketches written by his editor friend, Mark Orrin. Anne Marie Shea, Cassidy's wife and mother of their two children, daughter Erin and son Sean, has provided line sketches of each person profiled in the book.



The Gift of Tears

Nancy's always been gifted
with what her Irish ancestors
call “the gift of tears.”

When we go to see
a “chick flick,” I always know
when to glance over and see her dabbing
at her eyes with Kleenex.

Now I see unshed tears
almost always present
in her blue soulful eyes.

Sure I get her to laugh
at my silly stuff now and then,
but always the same tears
shine, reflected,
in my eyes' matching mood.



Mother Teresa with a Better Stand-Up Act

Recently I stumbled upon a quote
from William James:
"True wisdom lies in knowing
what to overlook."

Years ago
when we were raising
our two children and fostering
a number of teenage boys, Nancy told me:
"A wise mother doesn't see everything."
Funny thing, though,
in the process of overlooking
a lot of unimportant problems, etc.,
she'd see clearly through
to the essence of things.

All this is to say:
she has an artist's eye
skilled at putting all things into perspective—
making her an excellent judge
of character—-as she sees
the irony in life and people quickly.

Her humorous observations
often have a "Mark Twain quality"
as she sees naked emperors
strutting down the streets of the 21st century.
She'll gently poke fun
to me privately at their pompous
or dishonest behavior.

Author's note: I've borrowed, with his permission, the title of this poem from my brother Michael. He used this comment on the occasion of my mother Vivien's 80th birthday to describe her.



Please Don't Take My Sunshine Away

I place my hand on your back
right at the spot where you
say it hurts, then you
take my other hand, placing it
on your abdomen,
asking me to hold it tight.
Deborah comes in, bringing
you two pills to help calm the cramps
in your belly. She smiles and says
she'll disconnect you from the intravenous
antibiotic now.

We talked last night
and you said you weren't
fooling yourself, that you knew
just how serious things were.

Tomorrow your oncologist
has another painful bone marrow
test scheduled, so you tell me
you know Anne will get an upset
stomach assisting the Doctor,
but insists on being your nurse
on Tuesday.

I wrote in a book of the private
journals of Mother Teresa
which we gave Anne when
you were here for nearly five weeks
on your first chemo treatment:
"If Mother Teresa were Irish,
she'd be you," underscoring
the word "were" since I corrected
her use of "was" in a similar sentence
when we were speaking and told
her that was a common mistake
in English usage.

I told her it was
the use of the subjunctive mood,
because it was a "condition contrary
to fact" and wish my lovely Nancy's leukemia
were the same.



Deep Woods' Woven Shade

a reflection on W. B. Yeats

Cloaked beneath night's sinister tapestries
I stumble down deep woods' woven shade;
fearful, I pick my way past ancient fallen trees
shrouded in moss within a wide mushroom glade.

Lost among old blown-down cracked boulders—
hills sent tumbling as Sisyphus lost his grip—
I cease my quest, lacking Atlas's shoulders;
yet despite all my efforts I dare not complete my trip.

Wind's and rain's prophecies oracle a delphic choice
as I wander by streams that murmur, as if from afar,
echoing my mother's well-remembered soft voice,
reminding me that each stormcloud conceals a bright star.



Earthquake: Haiti January 2010

How lucky we are to be livin'
here at the garbage dump
in our cardboard shack!

Not only did we have nuthin' to lose,
but when the stacks of rubbish
swayed, then toppled,
some real treasures stood uncovered
when we went out to rummage
as soon as the nasty after-shocks ceased.

I feel guilty but it's been a blessin'
for us scavengers!

I feel so sorry
for all the rich people livin'
in those beautiful stone houses
who're buried beneath
the walls of their own homes.
Let's pray our soldiers
get them out before it's too late.

I hear the Archbishop's house
fell on him, killin' him instantly,
and President Preval's Palace collapsed
so's he's homeless just like us.

Even "well-to-do" homeless folks
who live in old, beat-up jalopies
got through this a lot better off
than many who had money for apartments.

I remember lots of those
good folks comin' over to bring us
food and clothing and prayin'
with us at the outdoor masses
the American missionary father
says for us on Sundays right here
on top of the Port-au-Prince trash heap.

They always brought some candy
for little Jacqueline and Jean-Francois
and gave Hector and me
a little money to help
buy medicine.

Now some of those folks
are homeless too—we'll see them
here soon enough.
I hope they're still alive
so we can help them learn
how to survive on next to nothing.

Author's note: This imagined person would have been speaking either French or Haitian Creole, the two official languages of Haiti. Haitian Creole is a combination of 18th century French, African, Spanish, Taino and increasingly English. In order for the poem to be understood by English speakers I've put this dramatic monologue in standard English.



All Saints Day: Afghanistan 2009

Broken boulders are all that remain
of serene sandstone Buddhas:
monolithic statues once carved from the mountains
that watch over Afghanistan's valleys.

Claiming they were sacrilegious
the Taliban dynamited
these ancient enlightened ones.

An American artist in London
tries to depict in her massive painting
the empty spaces left behind
the vacated Buddhas, only recently awakened.

No American studio's big enough
for her immense canvas.
When completed it will be dislodged
from its stretchers, rolled up and shipped
to New York City for display.

Ironically spiritual spaces are often desecrated,
barren desert areas where every excess
is stripped away to reveal essences.

Saints empty themselves, where others
obsess about filling time and space
with non-essentials.

Some holy ones keep human skulls—
stripped of all skin and muscle—
on their desks, reminding them of life's limits.

When the Taliban
annihilated the Buddhas,
unwittingly they revealed the underlying emptiness—
the Buddha's true essence.

Saints seek empty space—
letting go of all
to be filled by the Almighty.



Time to Miss You

Gray clouds weep—disguising dawn,
allowing me to sleep late.
Sasha doesn't remember
the last time you petted her first.

Finally pelting rain conspires
with your Estee Lauder fragrance
to lull me out of our trip's exhaustion—
interrupting my dream.

Someday I'll retrace our steps,
pick up your black gloves
from the lost-and-found at the City Diner—
but how many hundreds of miles?

My eyes'll silently scan
the highway for the driver
weaving between three lanes
you pointed out to me cautiously.

But first today we'll
fix the leaky pipe
you noticed dripping in the hallway
when we stumbled in late last night.

Someday there'll
be time enough to miss you.




Slow Down, Sunset

When I enter the shower
you're still sleeping
with your pink cap covering
your naked head.

Yesterday when I saw
the hurt in your blue eyes
as I noticed your naturally
frosted red hair
was all gone,
I averted my eyes
when I came in as you got
out of the shower.

Your missing hair
reminds me of what
you said last Friday
about both of us
going through
loss together.

When I went into the garage
to get Baby Girl some dry dog food
I noticed a soft red cap
waiting in a box for a yardsale.

I put it on the table
in the den and wonder
if you'll wear it.

I hope you believe me
when I tell you
how beautiful hairless babies
can be and how everyone
loves ET.



Echoes of Love Remembered

Amid April's time of males seeking mates
mockingbird soloists from treetop stages
sing cyrano songs from sunset till past dawn.

Each evening star chooses one to promote
and agents its favorite insomniac to the moon
who listens with full zen detachment.

I walk beneath rows of mulberry trees
whose yellow tassels sway in Spring's winds
scenting evening's air with potent pollens.

She listens to my words with songbirds'
accompaniment echoing borrowed lines
I've learned from ancient poets.

But her ears hear a younger lover's distant voice
speaking words of unrehearsed passion
no imitating bird or memorizing man'll ever match.



I Know Not Why

for Nancy on our 37th Anniversary

When I marvel over your face
and see the one best on this Earth,
Love fills me with such emotion
I'll never again need to search.

Love's philosophy's not contained in books
with pages full of arguments logical,
but shines in print your eyes impress
upon my heart and mind and soul.



A Place Among the Stones

Daylight glints off uniform-skins
of salmon schools racing late
to early Spring's lessons.

Some slow their pace
to ponder his seaweed-shrouded body
sprawling on Galway's boulder-broken beach.

They wonder why he braved his boat
to check his father's lobster traps
when full moon waves were rough.

Now uncles carry him on broad shoulders
up steep rock hills
to his mother's thatched cottage.

With his corpse propped in a corner
on an oak plank, neighbors
drink and sing till dawn.

Even his red setter licking salt
off his black boots won't wake him
to take her out to romp in the yard.

After Mass his red-haired brothers bring
the boy's body to a black wound in Spring grass
near a place among the stones.



Washington, January  20, 2009

Slave-built white steps
climb to the Capitol building
where on a platform
at high noon
Barack's black hands swear
on Lincoln's closed Bible.

Obama's oath of office
is administered
by the Chief Justice
of a Supreme Court
which once decided,
seven to two, that Dred Scott
and all Africans
residing in the United States
were "considered as a subordinate,
and inferior class of beings,"
not only devoid of all citizenship rights,
but with the official status
of "ordinary articles of merchandise."

Later a majority
of Justices concurred that
"separate but equal" schooling
was good enough
for these folks
who obviously liked hanging out
in the back of the bus.

Michelle's ancestors
smile and point
to Malia and Sasha
dressed in their
Sunday-go-to-meeting best.

The girls stand next
to their Dad and Mom
near the place
black fathers, mothers and children
were broken apart
and sold to the highest bidder.

Dreamin' Martin was 80 yesterday.
Hard to believe
someone tried to vanish
his vision 40 years ago.

The Reverend Doctor's
toasted tonight
in the President's house
constructed by slaves.

Loud laughter shakes
Abe's bedroom windows
well into the Winter night.



Lincoln's Autopsy

Idiot wet winds
blow up from the South
the day after you died—
contradicting the jubilee mood
below the Mason-Dixon line.

Since you now belong to the ages,
dissecting your cadaver
is an impossible feat.

Doctors choose to remove
the bullet that killed you
and leave the rest of your body
intact—a holy relic.

This fact doesn't stop
character assassins
from plunging their scalpels
into your tenure as president
discarding your courage under fire
and blaming inexperience
for failures as commander-in-chief.

The train escorting
your remains for burial in Springfield
passes thousands lining the tracks
who do your soul's autopsy.



Word Upon a Windowpane

Variations on W.B. Yeats

The Winter weekend we met
I scratched your name with mine
on December's frost that coated
my room's cracked windowpane.

But I failed to calculate
how my cold calligraphy
would last only 'til January's Sun
erased my finger's script.

If only Cupid carved our names
with his sharp arrow's blade
upon this broken pane of glass
we'd still gleam there indelible.

Your lost love lingers in my heart—
Spring's thaw can't ever erase,
though March winds' scraping limbs
deface our fragile crystal letters.



The Gift of Despair

Without a word
he places my regular
straight-up double bourbon
on a red cocktail napkin
atop the cigarette-scarred bar.

The bleached blonde
at the end of the bar
yells to the wino slumped
over next to me:
"Hey, honey, ya wanna party
or somethin'?"

For an hour
my spirit dissolves
into a full glass
of emptiness.

Without sipping a drop
I stumble out at midnight.

I walk down a street
curated on both sides
with galleries of lithographs
etched by the full Moon.

I imagine my life
illustrated by rorschach inkblots
of skeleton trees and empty houses
circled by picket fences.

I pass a strip mall church
with a handwritten sign
lit up behind a piece of plate glass:
"We're not punished for our sins;
we're punished by our sins."

All are welcome.



New Year's Eve: Iraq 2008

Two minutes remain
on the sentry's watch—
ending at midnight.

The Army private recalls
one extra leap second's
being added to this year
to keep clocks accurate,
due to earth's rotation
slowly winding down.

Near his post
guarding the Green Zone,
this invisible moment—
like a weapon of mass destruction—
goes undetected,
as a bomb lighting the sky
greets the New Year.



The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Waking the dead
creates too many
unfortunate variables,
but my undisciplined mind
still keeps taking a stab at it.

I regret listening
to my Greek tutor's
vivid descriptions
of Caesar's mutilated corpse.

Because now Julius's scars
fill my dreams
with gaping wounds.

After two weeks fending off
senatorial steel blades under my bed linens,
today I threw a dagger
at my wall map—
making a bull's eye landing
on the Isle of Capri.

I took this as an omen
from Mars pointing me
to a safe place where
He'll help me win the wars
within me.

I'll build a villa there
in his honor
and send messages
back to Rome to the Senate
who can deal with the unruly mob.

If I never return
to the capitol's filthy streets
you won't hear me complain.

Heaven knows,
the last thing I enjoy
is parading around
before these uncouth citizens,
never knowing if an assassin's knife
lurks in their hands for Hadrian, the Divine.



The Dark Does Die

for Harvey Milk

I'm an out-of-the-closet New Yorker
who's found a new life
transplanted here
in the Castro District of San Francisco—
only to drink death threats
with my morning coffee.

Instead of paralyzing me
this daily beverage of mortality's caffeine
perks hope's adrenaline into my blood:
I zest for the challenges of now.

Sure I could
change my name,
move back to the Big Apple,
blend in and
let others fight
for justice's light.

But often for the dark
to die, and the dark does die,
first a martyr's blood
scatters Sunflower seeds.

When they spring into bloom
honest men see:
"No one is free
unless everyone is free."



Shut the Eyes of the Dead

Unable to sleep at 3 am
the commander-in-chief
decides to make a final
visit to a country
his loyal troops still occupy.

Each night he
awakens in a sweat
seeing the staring eyes
of the dead.

He walks
over anonymous blood
spelling out a violent vision
on the pavement.

He gags
at the putrid stench
of invisible cadavers.

One by one
he stoops down
to pry their dead eyes shut.

Holding a defiant
steel grip
their lids refuse to close.



The Trance of Scarcity

"Being" and "having"
enter a fierce contest
each dawn when he awakes.

He pits Apollo's Sun
against the Venusian star—
foolishly choosing sides.

The prison of his eyes
calculates what profits can accrue
by shackling them both for sale.

Owning them, thinks this fool,
will bring him such treasure
he'll need not wake till Noon.

Listen how the heavens laugh
as stars fade before he scores them
and the West Wind slaps him from his trance.



Beneath the Cherry Trees

June winds like flower girls
scatter pink petals
over the Capitol's
reflecting pond's surface

Blood from twenty-two victims
and a suicide bomber
dries in pools on Baghdad streets

Beneath Washington's cherry trees
we sit and talk of peace and love
while down the promenade
Congress passes legislation
designed to end the fighting

Like bills not veto-proof
these ornamental trees
produce no fruit



Palm Sunday, Iraq 2008

No procession creeps
through Mosul's streets
this morning with shouts
of "Hosanna to the Son of David."

Yesterday's march to the cemetery
laid to rest the city's murdered Archbishop
wearing his pectoral cross
over his crimson cassock.

The market is deserted ...
except for a young donkey
walking over singed palm fronds
that still smolder on the ground
next to several shredded scraps
of black blood-soaked burkas.



Speed of Dark

Paddy's eyes stare darkly from pine branches
toward the bay as dusk drowns day

***

Shuttered behind closed windows
Nancy lights candles on the oak table;
like a lighthouse they flicker a signal
onto his stone path

***

His red face like a lobster hot from the pot,
black boots salt-staining a foot off the floor,
his clothes smelling of fresh salmon,
his mouth props a clay pipe

***

The speed of dark shrouds her linen table cloth
to wrap Paddy's nightly wake

***

He snores in time to the turf fire
that hisses rhythmic as waves
taking sand back out to sea



Spring Waking

Winter rains soaked
down to Spring's roots
as I hit bottom
that third of March

I didn't know
it was my last drink
of booze
till months later
when I knew
I'd wanted
it to be

By then
water'd done it's miracle—
flowers on stems
came straight out of
dark soil

Now I see
in a melting pond
my Spring waking



"Taste of that Salt Breath"

Reflections on a verse of W. B. Yeats

So, I'll take my watercolors
and go to where the rocks
reach out like Celtic hands
just in from the fields,
spread for the surging sea's cleansing.

There on promontories that jut out
to where the starving have all gone,
I sit and stare inhaling salt breath
your incoming tide exhales
upon these stones.

I want to taste the salt of seas
invading redhaired Vikings smelled,
remembering as they leaned back
to watch our green shores fade,
longed to return and learned to love our land,
then stayed to give birth
to all my wife and children's fierce red fire.

Now, upon my own head that bonfire
has retired to ash
where white-caps top me,
and I wave toward heaven
wondering when and why I've come today.

Oh, I'll sit and paint on this stillpoint;
let waves outside me crash
and send their white-churning
to bound against the boulders
that fill my breathing chest.

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