All Billy Hell
Patrick O'Neill
The Poem
The story
of the phrase’s hatching
into the nest of trite figures
that sometimes flap
around in my figments
migrated to a remote site
in my early childhood.
An inquisitive friend
sent me hiking back,
flushing it out.
She was babysitting me.
Her father’s handyman—
an old Romanian—
wary of her boyfriend—
said, Watch y’r back;
drugs have made him rabid.
She sang it to him: I luuuv him
to beat all Bill-y hell.
She took my hand,
headed for the door.
She whispered in my ear,
It’s one of his pet phrases.
She laughed, turned, and—
like she craved its tone—
sang it again: I luuuv him
to beat all Bill-y hell.
His hand bade us wait.
It’s a hairy way to love,
he said. You do anything
to beat all Billy hell
and all Billy hell trots along
like an obedient dog,
then—smack—
turns—ferocious, mad—
and wups your ass.
He became silent, sad—
twisting balled hands
in his eyes. We waited.
He finally dropped
his hands, shrugged,
said in a soft voice,
But, shit, ain’t been
but one brief thing
worth beans come to me—
and she rode in,
like a bronco buster,
on my givin’ ’er—
to beat all Billy hell.
I was there waving;
she left town—laughing.
When she came back,
she babysat me a few times.
She never sang,
only pretended to laugh.
Her spirit, like the story
of the stork of the phrase,
had migrated.
I tried to find it—
flush it, send it back.
But, unlike the story,
it had hidden too well
in the quagmires, brambles
of her misery.
I became weary of the hunt,
grew up, tramped recklessly
with the days and years—
lost track of her
in the quagmires, brambles
of my trek.
isbn 1-59661-134-0
58 pages/$9
In all Billy Hell, Patrick O’Neill observes the details and interactions of nature and human nature and shares his unsparing insights. Like well-written short stories, the best poems have real people, conflicts, and revelations that delight the reader with resolving surprise.
—Diane Montz
Patrick O’Neill’s verse with its wonderfully “everyman” characters brings so-called “common folks” to a literary immortality that demands his inclusion in the pantheon of old and new great poets.
—Del Reitz
Born in Pontiac, Michigan, Patrick O’Neill grew up and attended high school in Waterford, Michigan, received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, taught English for a few years at Comstock High School, then moved to Ironwood in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where he teaches writing and literature at Gogebic Community College and writes poems, stories, and plays.
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