Chicago Poems

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
...

(or Blues for a Mississippi Black Boy)

I was born in Mississippi;
I walked barefooted thru the mud.
...

Now a friend of mine, way back in Chicago
You know, he finally made his pile.
Well he got himself a mansion on Butler and Sheff
...

There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight
Beyond the ledges of concrete
restaurants fall into dreams
with candlelight couples
...

Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Bashõ and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,
...

AS I sat alone, by blue Ontario's shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return'd, and the dead
that return no more,
...

I like Canadians.
They are so unlike Americans.
They go home at night.
Their cigarettes don't smell bad.
...

In places like
Selma, Alabama,
Kids say,
In places like
...

I saluted a nobody.
I saw him in a looking-glass.
He smiled--so did I.
He crumpled the skin on his forehead, frowning--so did I.
...

St. John of the Cross wore dark glasses
As he passed me on the street.
St. Theresa of Avila, beautiful and grave,
Turned her back on me.
...

O chansons foregoing
You were a seven days' wonder.
When you came out in the magazines
You created considerable stir in Chicago,
...

OF him I love day and night, I dream'd I heard he was dead;
And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love--but he was not
in that place;
...

In the mid-city, under an oiled sky,
I lay in a garden of such dusky green
It seemed the dregs of the imagination.
Hedged round by elegant spears of iron fence
...

SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic--hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat--you, divine average!
...

1

Many animals that our fathers killed in America
Had quick eyes.
...

April doesnt hurt here
Like it does in New England
The ground
Vast and brown
...

Over and over they used to ask me,
While buying the wine or the beer,
In Peoria first, and later in Chicago,
Denver, Frisco, New York, wherever I lived,
...

Oh the changing of the seasons it's a pretty thing to see
And though I find this balmy weather pleasin'
...

In flat America, in Chicago,
Graceland cemetery on the German North Side.
Forty feet of Corinthian candle
celebrate Pullman embedded
...

STARTING from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born,
Well-begotten, and rais'd by a perfect mother;
After roaming many lands--lover of populous pavements;
...

I live in Chicago
A very windy city
But tonight I will dance the Chicago samba
Once again
...

in my birthday party an old retired seaman came with his beautiful daughter who is taking care of him since his wife works as a caregiver in Chicago.

he is diabetic, with a high blood pressure and thinks that death shall take him soon. he does not drink Fundador but he obliged, saying life is too short for another happy deprivation.
...

For the most part, in western region of the planet, the smoke and wild fires are gone for 2020, and back east, after much destruction, the hurricaneseason has run its course. We pray that this winter will be less severe.

'Cold' is what I used to experience walking on hardened soil. 'Cold' is what I observed of icicles dripping from roof tops. 'Cold' is what I used to feel while growing up in the deep south.'Cold' was early childhood, being too poor to afford indoor bathrooms,and visits to the outhouse on a cold January night was the only option.
...

a crescent moon
on the Chicago River...
Biden-Harris
in blazing blue letters
...

I felt the heartbeat of a great city
The summer heat the winter ice
A memory made fonder now
As I look back on the how
...

With you,
With, with you,
You,
Only you,
...

Chicago is just like the modern Antarctica with so much extremely cold weather.

Chicago is just like the modern Antarctica and this is not the summer time where people see feathers and hot weather but instead they see snowflakes, ice balls, in the lake, snowballs, and hail this weather is so irrate.
...

He's a bad motherfucker
Johnny Chicago, Johnny Chicago
In the kitchen, at the railway station
Johnny Chicago, Johnny Chicago, Johnny Chicago, Johnny Chicago
...

Don't go to Chicago
You'll love the way
The lights bounce off
the cement
...

My father never talked much about religion but he went to Mass every Sunday, the 6: 30 Mass where few people would be and he wouldn't have to deal with friends and neighbors. His contribution envelope was always filled out the night before, sealed and propped against the salt shaker on the kitchen table. It was gone with him when I as a child rose in the morning.

My sister and I would go to the children's Mass later and my mother to the Mass at noon. We weren't, spiritually speaking, a close family. Truth be known, we weren't a close family. But that's another story sometimes hard to write or explain.
...