On Groundhog Day-the birthday of James Joyce-
We squabbled over money at the Holiday Inn
In Harrisburg.
How much is a poet worth?
To find a fee commensurate with energy
Spent in high schools of the Commonwealth
And pacify the overseers of the Arts.
Rain all day and paralyzing ice-storms
Threatening.
How much to raise the new Jerusalem?
Unanswered.
Drained, we drank to Joyce and left.
As darkness claimed the capital I crawled
Down to Penn Central’s shabby depot in the wet.
My train crept in an hour late. I heard
Punxsutawney’s resident poet had better luck
Not seeing his own shadow, he slept under muck.

RICHARD O’CONNELL lives in Hillsboro Beach, Fla. Collections of his poetry include RetroWorlds, Simulations, Voyages, and The Bright Tower, all published by the University of Salzburg Press (now Poetry Salzburg). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Measure, The Atlantic Monthly, National Review, Margie, The Texas Review, Acumen, The Formalist, Light, etc. His most recent collections are Waiting for the Terrorists and Dawn Crossing.