TROLLEYS AND BARS - A POEM BY PETER NOLAN SMITH

Oh, the trolleys of Boston.
The screech
Of steel on twin seams of rail,
The Boston College trolley lurching into Park Station.

I don't know if I will ever return
To Boston.
Like Charley
The man never to return on the MTA.

Orange and white trolleys
Me and my older brother
With my Nana on the tram to Forest Hills.
Then the train to Washington Street
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.
I never met the son of the Aran Isles.
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
Squeaking sliding from under the shadows of the elevated subway to Dudley.

Irish drinkers at the Concancannon and Sennet Bar
Listening to the trains overhead
Watching the trolleys leave the yards for Mission Hill.
Never saying a word.
A Gaelic nod said another beer,
Trolleys rolling all night 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 in our Jamaica Plains bones.
From Forest Hills to Park Street to Boston College.
To the other Concannon and Sennett's on Comm. Ave.

There.

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.
She had one-hand.
No one knew why.
Her enchiladas better than good.

Last trolley thirty minutes after midnight.
Last call 1AM.
The Flannery brothers waging a going home fight
On the sidewalk.
Interference was taboo.
Everyone's business was their own.

Drunken blood slushed through my veins. Listening to the last song. Aerosmith on the juke box. DREAM ON 1973

The band lived down Comm Ave.
By the Hi-Hat Lounge
I sold them mescaline in caps.
Laced with strychnine
Stronger hallucinations
$5 a cap.
We all saw the night.

At 1AM the music went dead
The bartender threw us out.
The doors shut.

I walked across the tracks.
With Hilde.
Making sure the teenage got home.
Hand in hand.
Safe
Sound
Her with me
And me with her.

Comm. Ave. quiet.
No more trolleys
Only the night

Foto Hilde and me 1974