Lally's Alley

just another ex-jazz-musician/proto-rapper/Jersey-Irish-poet-actor/print-junkie/film-raptor/beat-hipster-"white Negro"-rhapsodizer/ex-hippie-punk-'60s-radical-organizer's take on all things cultural, political, spiritual & aggrandizing

Tuesday, March 31, 2026

MARY BETH HURT R.I.P.

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When I heard that Mary Beth Hurt had passed, my first instinct was to call poet Ray DiPalma, forgetting he passed years ago. I first knew of...

Wednesday, March 4, 2026

IN AWE OF STILL

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Fifty-eight years ago I was awestruck by the miracle of Caitlin's (my first born child) presence in my life and the deep and immediate c...

Friday, February 27, 2026

CHOOSE LOVE NOT FEAR

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Recently my twenty-three-year-old trans grandchild, Deak, had top surgery, and I’ve never seen them happier or more at ease in their body an...

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

NEW LIST

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I watched LAST CHRISTMAS with my daughter the other night and dug it even more this time, my new favorite Xmas movie. Woke up the next morni...

Saturday, December 20, 2025

TINA DARRAGH R.I.P.

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Too many deaths (as always) to comprehend, but wanted to mark the recent passing of poet Tina Darragh. I met her when I started teaching (Mo...

Tuesday, December 2, 2025

AIDS DAY

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i lost a lot of dear close friends as well as ex-lovers to AIDS, and don't know why it missed me, but that's my personal and all of ...

Sunday, November 23, 2025

NOVEMBER SONNET

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On a perfectly clear Fall day, heading back to Fort Monmouth, I watched as other cars on The Garden State Parkway veered onto the shoulder a...

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About Me

Lally: MY LIFE 2

When I was 10,
I thought I was "Irish,"
even though I was
born in the USA.

When I was 20,
I thought I was "Black,"
even though my skin
is pink & freckled,
my hair is straight,
and I have no
African ancestry.

When I was 30,
I thought I was "queer,"
even though I was
married and had
two children, and
most of my fantasies
& obsessions & com-
pulsions & attractions
were and had always
been (up until then)
about women.

When I was 40,
I thought I was a
"movie star," even
though the movies
were terrible, and
I was terrible in
them, and almost
no one knew them,
or who I might
have been in them.

When I was 50,
I thought I was
"enlightened," even
though I wasn't.

But of course I was
and am—enlightened,
as I was and still am
—an Irish-Black-
Queer-Movie-Star.

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