Sunday #15

Chicago Odyssey


Home

A quarter century perched
between the weeping giants
of the Midwest--
     one, with glorious tears
     falling upon the ground
     and springing up in twisting
     spires of steel and glass,
     the other, with rust stained
     cheeks and stubble shaped
     from the crumbling corpses
     of a pre-Depression dream.


Paw Paw: Just So Nice, They Named It Twice

Small town reverse momentum--
the padding between a colliding life.
No hermits, saints, mad scientists,
just thin mothers and their hungry spawn,
young couples so long together
they've begun to morph into the same shape.
All lives, smudges on the map
between points of interest.


Reunion

twin brother faces removed by time
and conjoined again in momentary memories.

the insertion of past lives frozen
into the newly polished, pulsing, growing
shine of a separated seed spread upon
the westward blowing wind.

what's the story weeping brother?
new sprout tears upon a roasting
wooden roost overlooking the squatting
gem of the vast lake.

the city slid to the side,
a glide upon un-choked highways
to the calm old places
and a transplanted familiarity
in an unknown shaking attic.

airplanes and traffic and the aortic
spurting of a vibrant world
wrapping the peace of timeless static
drawn through the foggy past
and found with newborn old eyes.

let's baste the roof with cigarette butts.
I will leave
the tar in my lungs
and let stubs
of tobacco and paper
bake in the sun
we'll never see
from this perch tomorrow.


Traffic Jam

a single drop of water
affixed in the midst
of the anonymous sea
streaming by the window
reflecting a thousand crystal
lights, orange and blue, flaming
white, dancing upon the edge
of the rational spectrum--

all light condenses into shadow
halos shrouding illuminated faces
transfixed by a midnight emergency.

worry and bother,
curiosity and a stoney ambulance,
all flush knuckles and the knobs
of the steering wheel
beyond the grasp
of that anonymous sea.


The Elevator Room at the Top of the World

ancient machinery sparking
to a monolithic, disinterested audience
in the throes of near-organic midnight.

just reworked stone devoid
of the flesh machines running
the cables with automatic
flicks of the lobby button.

just empty gap-tooth grins
in the city horizon
smiling out at the fellow elders--
     nocturnal clankings,
     forgotten arcane steel,
     the rusted city guts.


Detente

piano adrift in the night city air
playing askance distant sirens--
peace in the middle of kinetic,
frantic lives.


The Cats Come on Little Cat Feet

Mingus rolled on my lap,
exposing white and lifted paws
and twisted, feline balance,
into a new position--

she plucked my stomach
like her namesake with talons
attacking catgut and a barrel-chested
bravado permeated the night smoke.


Preparation

weary travelers rest their heads
upon eastern promises
interpreted through chemical western eyes--

the silver and bronze cities transposed,
frustrated vibrancy against hopeful decay,
full time suburbs and the rattling retraction.

all lives and cities are the same--
mothers and their french fry kids,
young dresses waiting in a night queue,

a diaspora of paths,
but the feet tap out cousin
rhythms, fingers pluck sister strings

and the songs all blend
into one chanted hymnal devoid
of time and loss

encompassing willing ears in eternal
knowledge--


Words of Departure

What now, sleeping brother?
Shake off your rust and know
we are all discarded
rubbers at the bottom
of cheap plastic wastebaskets.

and there can
never be
anything
holier.


Signs

one sign hung above
the encroaching eastbound city--
     a dove constructed
     of beautiful blue notes,
     wax wings of blind hypocrisy
     and a timid sun
     unable to burn them away.
     he will not place
     a common stain
     on the still-mystical earth.


Epitaph

The road dust clock ticks
its last humble seconds
and all city visions and country questions
fold up into neat rear-view packages.