Oh the trolleys of Boston.
The screech
Of steel on subterranean rail,
The Boston College trolley lurching into Park Station.
I don’t know if I will ever return
To Boston.
Like Charley on the MTA
The man never to return.
Orange and white trolleys
Me and my older brother
With my Nana
On the tram to Park Street.
Then
Confession at St. Anthony’s
Grilled hot dogs at WT Grants.
A movie at the Paramount
Once THUNDER ROAD
Robert Mitchum as a hillbilly bootlegger.
Nana brewed beer during Prohibition.
She said with a County Mayo accent,
“Don’t tell your mother about the movie.”
We held our sand.
My grandfather drove trolleys
Out of Forest Hills.
Never met the Aran Isles son.
Never heard tales of him
I only saw photos
Never in a trolleyman’s uniform.
He died in the yard.
A trolleyman union rep
No money in his pocket.
Damned Boston cops robbed his dead body.
Still I dream the trolleys
Screeching through the shadows of the elevated subway.
And the Concancannon and Sennet Bar
Irish drinkers
Watching the trolleys leave the yards for Mission Hill.
Never saying a word.
A Gaelic nod for another beer,
Trolleys rolling all day long.
Yardbirds on the juke box
TRAIN KEPT A ROLLIN’.
Not such thing as late in the bar,
If your beer glass was full. We there were us.
The steel rails ran through our Jamaica Plains bones.
From Forest Hills
To the Concannon and Sennett’s on Comm. Ave.
There. 1974
With my girl Hilde,
Quarter beers,
A juke box
BU co-eds,
Brighton townies,
A HOT HAND pinball machine,
A naked woman
Atop a pink elephant painted over the bar
Up three steps
To the Phoenix Room.
Mexican food.
The only enchiladas in Boston.
A long-haired woman from Chiapas.
With one-hand.
No one knew why.
Her enchiladas better than good.
Last trolley 12:30 AM.
The Flannery brothers outside
A going home fight
Interference was taboo.
Everyone’s business their own.
Drunken blood slushes through my veins.
Listening to the last song.
Aerosmith on the juke box.
DREAM ON
1AM the music went dead
The bartender threw us out.
The doors shut.
I walked across the tracks.
With Hilde.
Safe
Her with me
Me with her.
Comm. Ave. quiet.
No trolleys
Only the night
Foto Hilde and me 1974
