After the Dream Poems: 2009-2011

By Thomas Porky McDonald

The eighth five-book collection of poetry by poet and writer Thomas Porky McDonald, After the Dream: Poems 2009-2011, brings the author even closer to home than in his previous work, with a thought to where the world is headed. The title poems for each of the five books in the mix, Born in the City, The Class of No Return, Touched by Life, Back to Astoria and What Lies Ahead, all speak of a man still searching to incorporate his early life into the realities of the 21st Century. Other notable pieces from each collection include “Friendships to Eternity,” “Together One, as Always” (City), “While the Leaves Blew,” “Always too Old to Change Anything” (Class), “When the Game Simply Took You Away,” “I’ve Never Forgotten About Friendship” (Life), “Scenes From a Lost Neighborhood,” “When Fear Overrides Our Humanity” (Astoria), “Needed in the Land of the Needy” and “A Glimpse of Bernadine” (Ahead). A solid entry from the still wandering and wondering balladeer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728347219

Thomas Porky McDonald

Michelle Le Chen was 7 years old when her father was incarcerated in 1975. Her mother spent the next 17 years working for her husband’s escape or release. The rest of Michelle’s family escaped from Vietnam in 1979-80, with most of them settling in Virginia, where she would live for the next 25 years, before moving to Florida in 2014.

Book preview

After the Dream

Poems: 2009-2011

THOMAS PORKY MCDONALD

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© 2020 Thomas Porky McDonald. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse   02/13/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-4722-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-4721-9 (e)

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Other books by Thomas Porky McDonald:

An Irishman’s Tribute to the Negro Leagues

Over the Shoulder and Plant on One:

An Irishman’s Tribute to Willie Mays

Where the Angels Bow to the Grass: A Boy’s Memoir

The Air That September

Hit Sign, Win Suit: An Irishman’s Tribute to Ebbets Field

Series Endings: A Whimsical Look at the Final Plays

of Baseball’s Fall Classic, 1903-2003

At a Loss to Eternity:

Baseball Teams of Note That Didn’t Win it All

Never These Men: One Man’s Look at Baseball’s

Creatively Cultured Characters

Does the Toy Cannon Fire Still at Night?

the skipper’s scrapbook

Poet in the Grandstand: An Enlightened Tour of Ballparks

and the Places Where They Live: 1990-2010

A Walk in the City: An Incomplete Tour

On the Tour: More City Walks

An Irishman’s Tribute to the Negro Leagues (Second Edition)

Poetry Collections

Ground Pork: Poems 1989-1994

Downtown Revival: Poems 1994-1997

Closer to Rona: Poems 1997-1999

Diamond Reflections: Baseball Pieces For Real Fans

Dem Poems: The Brooklyn Collection

Still Chuckin’: Poems 1999-2002

In the Cameo Shade: Poems 2002-2005

Vespers at Sunset: Poems 2005-2007

And These Thy Gifts: Poems 2007-2009

Short Stories

Paradise Oval…and other Tallman Tales

This Collection is Dedicated

to the Memory of

Bernadine Brown

A sweet girl and a dear soul;

One of the best friends I

made in my 31 years

at New York City Transit

Until that time, Bern

AFTER THE DREAM

POEMS 2009-2011

Introduction

Book Thirty-Six – Born in the City

Born in the City

1) Streets

On the North Side

The Rooftop Phantoms

Boulevard Dreaming

Under the Streetlights

Above the Three Rings

So Many Still Remain

In the Name of Junior Leslie

To Dream About a Dream

From the West Side of the Street

Red Line Blues

To Be the Proof

As the Eras Tumble Lightly

Outracing Overcast

Ten and Five Later

A Different Dream

Containment

Years by Day

About Long Kesh

On the South Side

2) Parks

An Image of Myself

I Recall Clemente

Friendships to Eternity

The Voice and the Gentle Man

Expectations

Are the Friendly Confines Darker?

A Start Forever Frozen

Sunday Fog

He Never Saw One Leave

A One-Season Flight

The First Time I Saw Magic

A Jimmie Foxx Morning

Scenes of Summer

Big Jim 550

The Sounds of Those Still Young

Forever in a Day

An Opening Day Loss

In Crossing Circles

Still the Ballpark

A Perennial Road Trip

Hit Men

Where You’re Not Supposed To Be

3) Bridges & Tunnels

Things That Only Happen in Dreams

Was the Jumper Wearing Green?

At the Dinner Salon

Your Enduring Spirit

The Only Promise

A Friend When There Was None

Only Lives

Arriving in Another Car

Back With Whitey Again

A Week of Days

The Bonfire

A Night, A Plea

Town Ball 409

Landscape for Life

You Thought You Were Leaving

The Church Girl and the Troubadour

When We Meet Again

Dampened Not a Bit

A Former Camp Counselor, Longing

What I Recall

On the Stoop

Together One, as Always

Book Thirty-Seven – The Class of No Return

Pre-School

From Here to Then

1) Home Room

My Classroom

The Three Still My Own

On the Moon Two Score

The Butcher’s Apron

A Reason for Thanksgiving

Wandering the Halls

Once a Life Sightings

Seeking Photographs

Six Years Selling Tickets

Another Season

T.K.’s Legacy

Gardy’s Gang

Final Sunday

See You There

The Chaw

Welcome to my Confusion

4205498

While the Leaves Blew

A Touch of Sadness

The Secret

2) Lessons

Always too Old to Change Anything

Catching Bert

A Road Blessing

About John/Michael 29

Looking For the Winnie Mae

Only an Agenda

When Trust Still Lived

Frogs to Sing

Access

The Shopkeeper

How Orange Saved the Day

Why Do You Run?

Overnight for Decades

Scully Inside

His Call to Yesterday

For All the Dead Living

Au Gratin Dishes

Behind the Bathroom Door

Lookin’ Like Everyone

Born to Last

3) Recess

Walk the Lie

Choosing Your Apollos

The Winds of Autumn

Schools Without Gargoyles

The Doll on the Shelf

It’s Theirs

Sometimes Retro Does

In Defense of Pepper Games

Olfactory Images

His Lifetime Later

No Funeral on Fifth Street

One More September

The Kids on Tour

Enchanted By What’s Out There

One Who Was a Friend

Short Dream

Wanting an Ending to Last

I Dreamed I Had Gone Away

Painfully Inadequate, Indeed

Looking For the Light

Detention

The Class of No Return

Book Thirty-Eight – Touched by Life

On Life

And So We Chase the Light

1) Then

When the Game Simply Took You Away

Streets of Amusement

A Mighty Pride, Indeed

The Last Shipmate

Everyone Had Played

Henrich in the Forties

For a Basket Catch

Arriving at Dexter Avenue

Who I Was

Tales of a Various Belief

Modest Majesty

I’ll See You at Hetch Hetchy

The Rapture of the Splendid

Ghosts at Your Side

A Genius Delayed

Don’t Ever Close the Door

More Diligent for Others

If I Could Have Been Older

A Place Where You Can Come and Go

2) Now

Heading North on Cortlandt

The Magic Photo

A Vestibule Reunion

Sideswiped

A Race to the Ferry

Fearing Images

Nothing is New Again

Fans in the Trailer Park

An Unrelenting Shrine

Our Sense of Human Be

An Unconscious Roadie, Willing

Subtle Flashbacks

If the Mirror Gives You Comfort

A Friend, a Co-Worker and a Gentleman

The Hundredth Christmas

Flood on the Tracks

How Far a Smile Can Go

Ebbets Heaven

To What We Have Left

3) Always

While Looking for Your Soul

Bags Begone

It’s Just Your Heart

Beyond that Christmas Day

The One Still on the Shelf

It Isn’t They

Bleachers in My Lifetime

A Tended Man

Navigating Destiny

The Jukebox of Your Life

I’ve Never Forgotten About Friendship

The One Road to Success

A Decent Sort of Guy

Mostly, as a Friend

The Realm of Sweet Immortals

24/7 (and More)

Back in This Room

The Truth is in Your Heart

4:30 Has Been Good to Me

Touched by Life

Of Life

An Unfortunate Time

Book Thirty-Nine – Back to Astoria

Back

Back to Astoria

Windy, Odd Dreams

The Waiting Deep

When a Gadget was a Gadget

Vienna/Munich

On the Board Up Above

Behind the Dirty Curtain

Waiting Once More

Frauleins in Red

The Winding Rink

How Different the Parameters

Getting My Everding On

Marienplatz

From Wien to Munchen

At the Mozart Café

St. Stephen’s

It’s Really Not That Different

Wondering Who’s Paying

Coney, by Prater

Alleys and Cobblestone Sidewalks

There’s Always a Story

Notes on the AFN

Back Again

When Twilight Leans Toward Morning

The Long Walk Home

The Man from Timeless

Is It Now?

Dreams About Her in the Summer

A Moment in Your Heart

Home Beyond the Hill

For a Taste of Then

When You Look Back For Your Soul

Scenes From a Lost Neighborhood

When Fear Overrides Our Humanity

The Final Ballpark

A Palpable Silence in Motown

A Life Interrupted by Misery

So Quiet Your Good-bye

Movie Trailers

Minnesota

Back Outside

Eras in Bronze

Comparative Bliss

At Hrbek’s Place

On Slumber Highway

Akin to Their Connection

Back Until

The Voice of Home

Eternity Lost

Safecrackers on the Yard

A Flag upon Your Heart

The One Who Brought Me There

A Letter from Tuskegee

Assaulting My Humanity

Texas

Wishing She Was Dancing

A Peacefulness Abounds

Two for the Heart

Nolan’s Bringing It Back

For a Natural

To For Some Still Revere

Stockyards Calling

Out Where Mahan Once Ruled

Reminded by Laughter

A Delayed BP Pitcher

Back Briefly

Mr. Ingenuity

Bobby’s Place

A Lasting September

The Big Board

For All Those Fine Seasons

Arizona

Heard From Phoenix

Silver Desperation

Ain’t Won by Grace

151

That Navajo Guy

A State of Fear

Through Instructional Sky

The Scent of the Moon

Book Forty – What Lies Ahead

What Lies Ahead

1) Hopes

A Half Reflection

Needed in the Land of the Needy

For a Few Years More

Making it to Uncle Jack

For the Morning Dark

The Midnight Air

Mostly Sunny

To Laugh on a Whim

Every Team Has Nuns

Almost Monday Morning

Rapid, to the End

The Lesson of Roseboro

As the Questions Mount

Better Some More

Where is Thy Oasis?

For Thoughts Undone

A Simple Life

Once Upon a Time in Absentia

What They’d Give for Fall

Two From the Early

Laughing at Midnight

2) Dreams

As Fifty Came

The Real Fan’s Code

By Nature

Mary Beth Holmes

The Sing-Sing Nine

Room to Defer

The Wedding Line

More About Fridays

There is No Class to Get There

A Dream of Distant Doorways

Back, in the Dark

The Abstract Verdict

Lennon and Hodges

McCovey’s Liner’s Gone Through

The Sultan’s Scepter

A Home in Every City

To Touch the Windshield

Hurricane Serenity

Thinking About Laurinburg

As Loyal as You’ve Seen

3) Nightmares

The Shadows of July

A Hit to Our Collective Soul

On the Kew

Petition to Repetition

Living in Reruns

To Wake Up Tired

Out a Limb

Two Horses in a Room

A Flaw on the Cover

Six Days Short of Twenty-Five

The New Pinstripe Order

Don’t Talk to Me About Ledgers

The Heroine at Midnight

To Get to the Other Guy

A Private Resurrection

The Human Stew

Living on the LCD

Those Left Behind

A Glimpse of Bernadine

As Then?

Boxing on the Radio

INTRODUCTION

By the time that 2009 came, I was still fairly prolific, so much so that when I had finished my usual five-book set, it was 2011, yet another collection that spanned just a couple of years. This being the eighth such collection, I finally got around to using a most relevant title to me, After the Dream, which alluded to the habit I have had from the very beginning in 1989, that of writing a poem immediately after waking up from a dream. Often, I actually wrote some or part of the pieces while still asleep, which might sound odd, but was fairly commonplace for me. And though the particular pieces in this entire collection probably contain no more or less sleep-inspired poems than in the past sets, I just wanted to use the title at some point. On the previous 7 collections, the title came about based on what was going on at that time. But by 2009-2011 though, if I was not exactly on automatic pilot, I was certainly locked into some basic mindsets that would define the pieces to come.

The five books contained in this collection did have some very precise themes. Born in the City is self-explanatory (because I was), The Class of No Return spoke of where I had been (a recurring notion), Touched by Life was another title that had been floating in my head (until a poem of that name arose), Back to Astoria chronicled a number of trips I made (and the subsequent returns home) and What Lies Ahead found me still looking for answers (this time in the future more than the past). The title pieces for these books became ones that I would grow to really appreciate, and as always, certain poems resonated to me very deeply.

In my seven previous chronological collections, I gave an expansive introduction to what was waiting inside each five-book set. After all this time, I figured that anyone reading this collection (especially those who had read any of the previous ones) only needed a brief guide into each book, so I decided to write one paragraph for each book, citing what I felt were the best and/or most representative poems. So here goes:

One of the ironies of Born on the City was that a few of the best pieces were not from my own town, New York City, but of one of my favorite road cities, Chicago. "On the North Side relays my thoughts on Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs and On the South Side does the same for Comiskey Park II, home of the White Sox, during a 2009 trip that I took with my usual road sidekick, Adam Boneker. The Red Line Blues" speaks of the train line in Chi-town that connects both Major League ballparks, with Central Chicago right in the middle of the line. Other significant pieces include "Friendships to Eternity," "A Jimmie Foxx Morning and Together One, as Always," which tells of a chance meeting with my lifetime friend, Ricky Rizzo, at the first game ever played at the Mets’ new home, Citi Field, a Georgetown-St. John’s baseball game.

In The