Chicago
Poetry, Full of Crow, June 2009
I walk in a pillow of cinder
flames apart from the night they ignited.
I don’t know where I live I lost my compass
and my bearings for directions fell to the under street.
The L trains still flow on track old, decried
I toss feeling toward the sea, no−
I toss feeling toward Lake Michigan,
a loyalist at heart no memory to me
I will be forgotten like lead to water;
or lead to fish,
or a forgotten park that the mayor Daily thought significant.
I lie in the shadow of the grass.
To simplify all this−
I lie in the shadow of grass.
I drop words to honey
to cactus and let it stick
in the history of Chicago and the old brick buildings.
Apart from the boats and the docks
and the harbors,
let’s not be fools,
Al Capone ruled this town.