Bing McGilvray
By: Charles Giuiiano - Nov 26, 2022
Bing McGilvray
Tossed in the deep end
Without a life jacket
Into the pits
Quarries actually
Here at Manship’s home
Dumpster diving
Cape Ann history
Four centuries
Of arts and culture
Since the white man came
While natives faded away
Where did they go
Questions asked this
Gloucester 400th Plus
What of the slave trade
Fish sold to Surinam
Swapped for molasses
Making rum in Gloucester
The finest families
Slaves in cellar and attic
Quality folks with
Plantations down Dixie
When cotton was king
Bing swooped in
Enormous presence
Came for lunch
Dynamic encounter
Exuding passion
Laced with f-bombs
Conveying back story
Steeped in the history
Tales of poets
The towering Charles Olson
Influential Gerrit Lansing
Blog with Peter Anastas
Now all gone
Casting broad shadows
Hearty laughter
The absurdity of it all
Local Lilliputians
Here in the provinces
Where few cross
A. Piatt Andrew Bridge
No need to leave this island
Now too attractive
Swarmed with tourists
A glut in summer
The infernal condos
Rich now in charge
Puppetmasters
Pulling strings
At City Hauled
New Know Nothings
Part of change
Where fishing died
On rotting piers
Yet love for this place
Like Olson’s Maximus
Epic poetic rants
Letters to GD Times
Cassandra cries
On deaf ears
He talked of Hockney
His friend David
Showed me portraits
Lots of them
Perhaps fifteen
Talk of a life
Richly lived
Overwhelmingly so
Struggling to keep up
Quite unlike me
In Manship’s kitchen
Making history
Hey, next time
I said, bring Bob Hope
He laughed at that
Don’t be a dope