The Unsung Song of Harry Duffy

By G. E. Murray

Pure veins of bogus blue-blood and such fancy hungers

In the end no surprise of reports of you dying younger than your gods

Kicked back in the classic toilet scene

With a spike in your arm and twelve large in pocket

Thanks to a lucky day scamming the dumb Social Services folks

It’s a human thing, pants at your ankles, leaving unclean

Because life’s road is only one night in a bad motel

Harry, you could play basketball in your bare feet, and win

You could name all the provinces of Canada

And simultaneously scour the Social Register

For the names of those sad and silly girls you wanted to get right

You relished autumn leaves and ignited inglorious schemes

Deconstructing the idea of prep-school Friday sunsets

In lavish October, stealing among faculty hors d’oeuvres and sherry

All the while creating your own hooligan oeuvre

With your others off to Yale, Colgate, Brown

Night after night, alone in L.A.

Seeking better quotas, vistas, cushion, heroin

And that last tricky exit to the Santa Monica Freeway

In one more borrowed car with one more borrowed fiction

Oh yes, you must have been laughing

And spitting back at the boldface of Pacific wind

Cruising the left coast on sheer gall

But mostly, at 3 a.m., in the local playground, Harry

You played solitary ball

And dreamed of final seconds in a distant game

You drove to the sacred bucket with a fury

Slick crossover dribble, and then burst to the pull-up jumper

No harm, no foul, nothing but net.

But all alone, in the heart of West Hollywood, Harry,

You jerk, you bricked the last shot.

G. E. Murray, “The Unsung Song of Harry Duffy” from Arts of a Cold Sun. Copyright © 2003 by G. E. Murray. Used with the permission of the poet and the University of Illinois Press.

Source: Arts of a Cold Sun (University of Illinois Press, 2003)