may 2010 poems
STRESS FRACTURE by howie good
My biography consists of three lines. The day will come when I beg to ride. One being the frayed line of the horizon. These boxes are heavy. |
BOX CAR by mitchell waldman
wet dreams of hopes survived and what is left but wonder and brittle smiles of yours in aging pictures riding in a box car no light or heat I curl up to a stack of coal a possible source of warmth if it would only light I'm sitting in an empty cup stuck to the sticky remains of wine once drunk I hear the furnace roar and dream of fire and a better day while someone checks the locks and I dare not blink or breathe. |
SOUTH CHICAGO NIGHT AND DAY (short version) by michael lee johnson
Night is drifters,
sugar rats, street walkers, pick-pockets, pimps,
insects, Lake Michigan perch,
neon signs blinking half the bulbs
burned out.
In the warmth of morning sun, lips grinning,
sidewalks folding open,
the big city drifts, and sailboats
lean against the Lake Michigan sand.
Night is drifters,
sugar rats, street walkers, pick-pockets, pimps,
insects, Lake Michigan perch,
neon signs blinking half the bulbs
burned out.
In the warmth of morning sun, lips grinning,
sidewalks folding open,
the big city drifts, and sailboats
lean against the Lake Michigan sand.
CHICAGO (original version) by michael lee johnson
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 decrepit, decried
I toss feelings toward the sea, no-
I toss feelings 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 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.
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 decrepit, decried
I toss feelings toward the sea, no-
I toss feelings 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 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.
A PLEASANTLY PERNICOUS RESPONSE by sarah stiel
Feel everything.
Feel it in you.
Feel how it grows with burning intensity;
the smell, the arrangements of chairs and book shelves,
and the way her face collaborates from overwhelmingly heavy thought.
Just for tonight let it take over your lungs
and consume you,
then breathe to make it hurt.
They’ll call you a masochist
and you’ll say “No, I’m just the only one with a beating heart.”
Feel everything.
Feel it in you.
Feel how it grows with burning intensity;
the smell, the arrangements of chairs and book shelves,
and the way her face collaborates from overwhelmingly heavy thought.
Just for tonight let it take over your lungs
and consume you,
then breathe to make it hurt.
They’ll call you a masochist
and you’ll say “No, I’m just the only one with a beating heart.”
DEAR SUZIE. by mike booker
she sits silent for hours her eyes fixated on stills of the atlantic taking some joy in the rhythm and repetition of the subtle changes in that wide-eyed monochrome she has a fear of crowds and city lights that burn blank, white on the rock-birthed concrete we sat on a beach once her gaze shining, bright while the waters exploded-- and the grey waves lit on fire the sun shining one million flaring jewels she watched the sunset smiling and the tide swallowed a bucket-born sandcastle-- a house i built for us and i wonder when her eyes fall shut at night drifting back into the oceans between her skull Does she dream of white-feathered wings? Does she dream of hollow bones? |
MID-WEST MIRAGE by mark kempf
Stand at the edge of the American mid-west: rolling hills behind a long plain, waving in the glean of chaff stalks, numbered as sparrows or sand. Big rigs and day-fairs sound across the divide into your back - boom boom, boom boom, the dust jumps. We ready to leap but find not a gap, but a slope hope for the cradle of loving arms APRICOT NECTAR by john swain
The river masked the paths with mud-wash and sediment. Dripping light bathes the swaying leaves with apricot nectar. I seek a new energy from an unfamiliar place like dusk arouses moths. Eventually sun and water return to their own substance. |
MICHIGAN DIRT by charlotte cunningham-mceachin
I don’t-know-why
the sugar always-smelled
like stinky feet, then.
(I was near my mother
in the kitchen,
but not-allowed-to-bake.)
Sometimes-Sister would be around,
and she was allowed,
So-always, there were
Her-cakes, Her-cookies, Her-confections.
(I remember the-pies though.)
Sometimes-Mother was mad,
and so she baked thirteen-pies
for Always-a-Dad.
She Baked and Spit and Swore and Smoked
when she made-those-pies.
She called them “mad pies”
because she was mad.
So, Sometimes
I would take myself
to-the-backyard,
below the second-story door into the attic, the door
that walked you into the-thin-air.
There,
I set up my grill.
I formed mud-patties
from Michigan-dirt,
and I made. . .
my mad-pies.
I made burgers, too.
I took Mad-Mom’s hamburger press,
stuffed it full-of-mud, and I
made the
most-
symmetrical-
patties
in:
(All-of-My-Michigan.)
I don’t-know-why
the sugar always-smelled
like stinky feet, then.
(I was near my mother
in the kitchen,
but not-allowed-to-bake.)
Sometimes-Sister would be around,
and she was allowed,
So-always, there were
Her-cakes, Her-cookies, Her-confections.
(I remember the-pies though.)
Sometimes-Mother was mad,
and so she baked thirteen-pies
for Always-a-Dad.
She Baked and Spit and Swore and Smoked
when she made-those-pies.
She called them “mad pies”
because she was mad.
So, Sometimes
I would take myself
to-the-backyard,
below the second-story door into the attic, the door
that walked you into the-thin-air.
There,
I set up my grill.
I formed mud-patties
from Michigan-dirt,
and I made. . .
my mad-pies.
I made burgers, too.
I took Mad-Mom’s hamburger press,
stuffed it full-of-mud, and I
made the
most-
symmetrical-
patties
in:
(All-of-My-Michigan.)
RUST-BELT PASTORAL by thomas zimmerman
The rusted Weber’s glaze of rain
is eating still
more deeply into it.
The sky’s the color of
a circa 1990 PC screen.
The storm’s still coming east,
Chicago blue
to Hammond brown to Ypsilanti gray
to Cleveland burnt sienna,
Pittsburgh blackened steel,
New York a mound of diamonds stuck in tar.
Our heads sit silent, basement buckets we
now fill
with Coltrane’s tenor cracking heaven’s dome,
Detroit’s own Elvin bashing hard,
McCoy
chunk-chunking, Jimmy thunking,
all
for love’s supreme
transcendence, trance, and dance. . . .
We move our bodies,
hair—our bodies’ grass—
sticks everywhere,
inside our mouths, beneath your breasts. . . .
It’s not far physically, and in our minds
eternally,
the walk through green-cool woods,
the hike of rocks and roots,
to reach the great-
lake shore,
to drink the wine we’ve packed,
await
the stars’ wide net—
we’re steelheads, herons now—
We glide, we gulp night in,
it lets us drown,
we seek its bottom,
knowing we will rise.
The rusted Weber’s glaze of rain
is eating still
more deeply into it.
The sky’s the color of
a circa 1990 PC screen.
The storm’s still coming east,
Chicago blue
to Hammond brown to Ypsilanti gray
to Cleveland burnt sienna,
Pittsburgh blackened steel,
New York a mound of diamonds stuck in tar.
Our heads sit silent, basement buckets we
now fill
with Coltrane’s tenor cracking heaven’s dome,
Detroit’s own Elvin bashing hard,
McCoy
chunk-chunking, Jimmy thunking,
all
for love’s supreme
transcendence, trance, and dance. . . .
We move our bodies,
hair—our bodies’ grass—
sticks everywhere,
inside our mouths, beneath your breasts. . . .
It’s not far physically, and in our minds
eternally,
the walk through green-cool woods,
the hike of rocks and roots,
to reach the great-
lake shore,
to drink the wine we’ve packed,
await
the stars’ wide net—
we’re steelheads, herons now—
We glide, we gulp night in,
it lets us drown,
we seek its bottom,
knowing we will rise.