"decatur" poems
The posters said tomorrow
At eleven on the dot
The Mishkin Brothers Circus
Would be here ....on this spot
There would be no carnival or midway
Just one tent and three rings
And all of the excitement
That a good old circus brings
There would be elephants and lions
Trapeze artists overhead
Dancing dogs and ponies
And zebras painted red
Clowns of all description
Answering to just one man
In the center of the circle
Was Mishkin brother....Dan
He'd run the show for twenty years
Gone from town to town to town
In one day they would get set up
And in two, they'd tear it down
One day to show the locals
The circus still was an event
With magic, form the Barnum Days
All housed inside one tent
The sideshow barkers and their geeks
Were not with this fine group
Dan Mishkin had assembled
Only the finest circus troup
From Russia he had jugglers
Knife throwers, just the best
******** riders from Decatur
Along with all the rest
Fourteen trucks and trailers
Pulled into town the night before
Breaking ground once they arrived
Working right through until four
Just old time entertainment
No travelling gypsy band was this
It was the Mishkin Brothers Circus
It was something not to miss
The show was started promptly
At twelve o'clock, like the sign said
A parade of all the players
And the zebras painted red
Two shows and it was over
The whole routine began anew
The field was once more empty
Gone was the Mishkin rolling zoo
A year from now, we'd see the signs
And we'd all go to the tent
To see the Mishkin Brothers Circus
The best money ever spent
Jun 13, 2015
Jun 13, 2015 at 4:48 PM UTC
Ghost Relics
Downtown,
where Main intersects Main
you'll see the last living tissue
of a breathing bazaar.
They weighed down her chest with bricks and girders.
It's a wonder she breathes at all.
-
Wander too far in any direction
and you're sure to see the husks
of once proud and bustling businesses.
Abandoned sanctums of mortar and majesty.
Scars of the Midwest etched as constants in our mind.
Dusty and silent since the cradle.
-
The theaters are bedeviled with dolled up haunts
who just wandered over from Greenwood to catch the matinee.
Management still leaves the lights on for kicks after hours
to throw off their sleep schedules while they wait for the feature to start.
Up all night, sleep all day; they read by neon and slumber under Sol.
Here I am, left lounging in The Devil's Chair. Crickets keep quavering.
-
Underneath the Franklin Street overpass sleeps a family bound by naught.
They watch in dawn's light as the few pedestrian that traverse Cerro Gordo
advert their eyes as some sort of silent symbol of respect for their situation.
It's as if the very stare of a privileged man could drain 'til depleted.
They never ask for anything, they just wade it out and listen to
the cars overhead, the train-clock's trumpet, and the heartbeats in between.
-
Leaks are patched, potholes filled, and yet
we're still loosing blood; becoming beguiled.
So many stray cats in the civilian savanna,
aimlessly seeking names and second chances.
"This premises is under police video surveillance" -
hanging like ornaments from streetlamp poles.
-
Guarding the gates
of a dwindling dominion,
as the armies of Union and Grand
wait in their camps
for the rust to take hold
of her iron veins.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 12:52 AM UTC
Changing buses at Flamingo and Decatur,
a Sister ogles my comped leather jacket,
while braceros mill about across the street,
awaiting any drive-by job offer.
This is the Vegas never seen from the Strip;
a town of cheap gifts and off-the-books labor,
where paychecks disappear in Dollar Loan Centers,
every cranny packing a local's casino.
A hundred taxis queue outside the Palms,
like pilot fish seeking ectoparasites upon a shark.
Inside the thousand dollar escorts hustle
overextended gamblers busting hard 16's at the tables.
I told the Sister I'd won the jacket. Impressing
her that anyone would ever be a winner,
watched her intentionally cross the street
to invite a bracero out to breakfast.
The 103 bus downtown ran late.
Leaving my losing parlay tickets on the bus,
I walk through the parking lot of despair,
the casino's glass doors awaiting me.
Feb 21, 2012
Feb 21, 2012 at 10:21 PM UTC
You can't safely have a cigarette outside of the bus terminal
without a couple of folk asking for one.
You can't safely have a cigarette in general.
But, if five of them have to last you a night and a sunrise,
you don't really mind turning down a few nameless hands.
Some of the bus drivers like to talk about football, weather;
others complain about management or the patrons;
a few don't say much at all, avoiding sympathy.
They're probably the smart ones.
They don't want to learn the sad stories in between stops.
I usually like to just sit in the back and ride out the best bumps.
The handrails jiggle and crash with every pothole.
-
The men who work at the metal scrap yard
usually get on in front of Debbie's Diner on 22nd street.
Bundled up for warmth and firm of face, they only speak to each other.
Small talk about who almost missed the bus, broken crane joints,
and who moved the most barrels of copper piping fill the blocks.
They tend to pick on the guy who runs the aluminum can crusher;
big guy, they call him "Boose" and he couldn't be much older than I am.
His hands and lips are dry and cracked from exposure,
but his face still shows ember of teenage years, though jilted.
There is a bar that serves three-dollar chili across the street, spicy.
The workers go there when they miss the first bus, have a beer,
down a bowl of boiling chili, and catch the return bus in better moods.
-
The railroads on Brush College road tend to hold up traffic.
The ADM plant doesn't really mind if a few twenty-something mothers
are late to their practical nursing and phlebotomy classes,
but they voice their complaints out of a cracked window to the side
of a ten story soybean silo nonetheless; steaming ears and all.
I stare at the graffiti on the laggard train cars, each unique
in color, quality, style, and message; the industrial Louvre.
These waits sometimes last a half hour or more.
In the days before Pell grant rewards come in,
when students still feel like they're working toward tangible cash,
the seats are all packed with heavy breathers.
The air becomes thick with community college carbon coughs.
Jan 18, 2015
Jan 18, 2015 at 9:23 PM UTC
I met Virginia in a wave of sleet.
On Decatur, a hundred winters ago,
with a black iris, black hair in ponytail,
with a tongue like a nightcrawling widow,
Virginia whispered tornados behind the backs of the
grey-suited saxophone players, going blue in the cheeks,
under their blackface.
Under a flimsy sheet of moon sliver sky and a dim streetlight,
Virginia kicked a soda can along the cracking concrete.
With each bar we passed, I hollered, "Thank God we're alive!"
and danced a shapeless jig.
Near Williamson cemetery, Virginia's white knuckles laced into mine.
"The amount of time we have cheapens whatever purpose we have,"
Virginia hissed.
I caressed her serpentine neck.
A lone car's high beams
made Virginia's silhoutte tower above the cemetery gates,
made Virginia's black irises madden to poisonous yellow.
She loosened my grey necktie.
I let down her hair.
A sea of collected strands fell
like a closing curtain.
The distant saxophone ascended to heaven,
leaving me below,
leaving me below,
leaving me to spend the night bellowing for above.
Oct 15, 2011
Oct 15, 2011 at 4:35 AM UTC
Union and Grand
I moved into this house less than a year ago
and already three gun related murders have occurred
within a three block radius; two of them involving children.
I'm not making this **** up.
Those numbers wouldn't be anything exciting for a population
hitting upwards of the millions,
but this is not a big city.
This is the heartland.
-
The city paid for a series of strategically placed dead ends,
forced turns, and surveillance equipment to be installed
in the area of about a mile surrounding my house.
No wonder they call this place "The Trap".
They keep changing the maze,
and studying us like rats.
-
They had a make-do memorial for the little girl who got shot.
They attached her stuffed animals, cards, and photos to a utility pole
on the corner of Union and Grand. The city had it taken down.
Some kind of city ordinance
from some dusty tome at the town hall.
Kids killing kids, and the shots keep firing.
-
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not what'd you call an activist.
But when bloodshed occurs within eye shot of where you sleep,
you start to get a little irked.
These kids have as much potential as me, and twice as much grit.
Their teachers barely even know their names,
let alone what it's like to be deprived of privilege.
-
I'll stomp this concrete until my feet break.
This labyrinth is my constant reminder and reality check.
I am here, and you are there.
This connection is suspended on silver threads and I am your puppet.
Mold me into your angst driven dreamboat.
Because tomorrow, I'm just going to wake up here. Tyler.
-
This soul has been folded seven times
and I grow tired of this reality.
There was a time when I could scream loud enough to wake the dead.
I guess I'm showing the symptoms
of an accidental child
with a tongue that only tastes art as bitter protest.
-
I'd tear my face off
to know if this is really getting through to you.
The face in the photo is that of the goat; the false idol and deceiver.
A Knight of Pentacles, selling you gold plated garbage.
Odin-kin.
You always feel like I have a secret to keep; my fist is in the air.
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 3:05 AM UTC
*The fundamental phenomena in nature are symmetrical
with respect to interchange of past and future.* --- Richard Feynman
Millions for Defense
In the Cabinet room of Monticello, clutching Decatur's letter,
the President removes his wire-rimmed glasses ---
Frigate Philadelphia has been burned.
Decanting a bourbon, he pours and quaffs.
Outside in the piazza the cicadas' din is unbroken.
The Pasha of Tripoli has his tribute!
In three short hours warm rays of sunlight
will greet the outstretched arms of Earth,
but for now the bourbon scintillates.
Ink splatters on the blotter,
as he pounds a clenched fist upon the desk.
Not one cent!, he pronounces to the wall-clock.
Cicadas hold sway in the Charlottsville night,
but on the Barbary Coast a fire is raging.
Feb 23, 2012
Feb 23, 2012 at 9:39 AM UTC
Nebulous and Refined
The castle is a chain-smoker.
The king wears a three piece suit.
And in the air, most everywhere
that scent just does not dilute.
-
A car lot filled with scribes and serfs
that assemble to deliver their willing tax.
They bump and argue for the closest view
of their Man-God on high: Glycine max.
-
Employment is down! Crime is up!
What if the factories all move away?
This town will surely shrivel and die!
That's what the soiled townsfolk say.
-
They humbly bow to their master's whim
but behind him they say much more.
Another Dead Man found Stale Lee in the vents.
Carcinoma galore.
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 3:50 PM UTC
I am a poor boy - A Capricorn
Perpetually saddened by my surroundings
Eight cats have sought me out for sanity's sake
But none of us seem able to escape on our own
All voices silenced for the sake of the rude,
the drunkard has-been, and so many varieties
of dream abandoned lives.
I fail to see any exit, reasoning, or plan.
These are the trials of a wisdom seeker
trapped in a pretty shell - conjuring Hell.
The west side of this city is falling apart and
my house is definitely no exception.
Any wealth left is gained from trading in
talent, hope, and aspiration for meager work
in refineries and plants that pollute
the bloodstream. Causing Decatur
to purposely decay into Lethe and
remove itself from memory and history - suicidal city.
I am just another generation in a long line
of poor romantics who close their eyes to the world.
I must have been born with the wrong last name
and composed of the wrong ingredients.
I may have insight, but no one dares or cares to hear it.
These people have given up on beauty and
have begun the worship of agriculture, but Artemis is no where to be seen.
My world has abandoned appreciation or art
because they have stripped it down to a profitable formula.
This may be a hopeless venture.
They have infected me with their grief.
Let the slumber of the soy city wash over me.
Aug 26, 2013
Aug 26, 2013 at 10:36 AM UTC
Torrential, lightning and a river on Decatur,
straightened tie, loaded gun, staggered
down to house 423, a big wet bottle in my hand,
a choir of angels in my head, I confessed to you
that I never much cared for Frost, possibly both
roads lead to an affair with me, time means little more
than air, cotton candy fever dreams, melting wedding bands,
a stain on your white dress, tender, torn up, seeing
Jesus on the cross at 3 am, it's Tuesday, borders, lines, barriers,
milk cartons, hamster wheels, the sun stayed away for fear
of witnessing this itchy massacre, plans? I find them trite,
quick to betray, overdrawn bank accounts, flat tires,
17-year-old quick ***** the wrinkles in the mirror,
the road back home, detour, detour, going down south
by way of 35, oceans of highways, shorelines of grief,
steady shots of grace in the passenger seat, where have
I smelled that before? Change your perfume, if I kiss you,
it needs to be strange, frightening, splitting the seams of
norm skull and disemboweling the sanctity of routine,
it's easy to put up the picket fence, easier yet to paint it black,
but behind the curtains of my .32 caliber grin,
lies a quivering child waiting for ma to get off work,
babysit me, hospital gowns, looking for lost blue crayons,
the bouquet rots on the windowsill, remember the first kiss?
Doped on caffeine, sleepless because Shorty partied too hard,
tile floor, porcelain, your strapless top undressed itself,
earthquake waltz, borderline insane, milk thistle,
both roads lead to an affair with me.
Nov 15, 2011
Nov 15, 2011 at 12:17 AM UTC
Jazz music and drunken slurs,
Passing streetcars turn to blurs,
Bite off more than you can chew,
Seafood gumbo, thick brown roux,
On shoulders sit sons and daughters,
Ferry ships, Mississippi waters,
Dancers dressed like voodoo queens,
Clad in purples, golds, and greens,
Yell, "Throw me something mister!"
Flying beads barely missed her,
Pralines, king cakes, and beignets,
Maid of Muses smiles and waves,
Rex, Zulu, Endymion,
From Decatur to Bourbon,
Floats, masks, a feather boa,
Sweet iced tea, jambalaya,
Big Easy on Fat Tuesday,
Lent is just a day away.
Jan 23, 2015
Jan 23, 2015 at 10:53 AM UTC
Someone left a black leather briefcase
at the bus station sometime earlier this week.
They called in a bomb squad
from over in Springfield
after the thing sat there for hours
emitting an aura of chilled sweat;
it took them just as long to get their
from what I've been hearing.
They blew the thing up.
Right there in the bus station,
they blew that ****** briefcase
to Hell and back after an X-ray
found wires and a circuitry board.
This is not a big city,
it's not a small town either,
but here we have a place
that I arrive at twice daily
getting pseudo-bombed
and I can hardly scrape up
the dollar for bus fare at times.
A warehouse over on Jasper street
caught on fire a few days later;
an inferno in close quarters,
so they knocked the old Bess over
so the flames didn't spread.
There is still a giant pile of rubble
at the site; bricks with masonry companies
imprint on the sides, rusty bars that were either
too heavy, or too stuck for scrapping fiends,
and a hell of a lot of odorous char.
This is a winter of fire in Decatur,
but the bones still chill.
The starter is going out
in the 91' Cutlass
that sits in my driveway
braving the winds.
I can hear that grinding noise;
the expensive one.
The one that says,
"Your savings is low!"
every time you think
you're going to have
a stable ride to work.
The bus is reliable,
the route is what will drive
a sane man off the edge.
You start to get sick
of seeing the same ****** places,
the same ****** turns,
the same ****** bumps, and
the same ****** passengers.
Plus, the radio makes Monday
just a little more tolerable
when you get the option
of stopping for breakfast.
I like that car.
Friday seems like a back brace right now,
and I've had just enough caffeine
to where I don't think I can stand a nap.
I'm just glad to have my shoes off, and
the reassuring calm of an uncashed check.
I'm starving.
Jan 30, 2015
Jan 30, 2015 at 7:50 PM UTC
Lost in the fumes of a cloudy exhale
I search for a glimpse of myself in grimy water.
My remains are scattered somewhere
between boyhood and gutter trash.
The present is hardly of concern
when the blankets of mud offer such astounding
silence.
This swamp was flooded with the prosperity of quitters.
-
The face of the street I grew up on
has been radically warped and distorted.
Leave a good thing to the elements long enough
and you’ll see it begin to degrade.
Dust gathers and mold begins to creep in
from the moisture lingering in the air.
It happens to our childhood toys
just as easily as it happens to the people we know.
-
Everything still holds the same shape;
the same structure that casts a shadow in memory,
it’s just that now the cosmetics have worn off
and you can see the tired lines start to show.
You can hear the creak of arthritic wooden steps
to front porches where old kin with liver spots
sit and drink a shared Ice House 40 oz. while spitting into the wind.
Cavities from a candy coated childhood.
-
There are strangers in my old home,
that place where my uncle lives
surrounded by VHS tapes, pictures of Brett Favre,
and reminders of dead cockatiels.
The biggest struggle is trying to recall
if he was always this way,
or did it take a forty year dope binge
for the hoarder to finally stir?
-
I wrote my name in the sidewalk at the foot of steps.
I search for a glimpse of myself in grimy water
and check under the bushes for garter snakes .
My stomping grounds have been wiped of footprints
and grandma’s violets don’t come in very well anymore.
They cut down the walnut tree, and got rid of the porch swing.
No time for whimsy, no time for strays.
The cicadas will sleep for ten more years, ‘til summer.
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 3:57 AM UTC
The Cathedral-Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France,
now called St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans was first built in 1718.
They hand out glow-in-the-dark rosaries for Mardi gras
so folks can find
their way to Jesus in the dark.
Come, pick your way through the park
cross Decatur to drink coffee at Cafe DuMonde,
have more beignets,
trail powdered sugar and beads
to stare the Old Man in his muddy eyes.
Hanging ferns and foibles
line balconies where voices speak
but you cannot understand on Toulouse Street:
you are but a traveler here even
when you've walked these cobbled stones
for twenty years.
Bend warp and weave your dinner;
string the lost
beads to sell to the unsuspecting
because anything goes
and the party will go on anyhow.
Beyond the sequined mask
naught but hollowed eyes you do
not want to see and that clown
you laughed at, but did not pay
juggles souls behind your back.
Jul 10, 2012
Jul 10, 2012 at 7:30 PM UTC
a token
ring of
Decatur still
makes pie
out of
Roberta's hind
quarter with
Illinoisan slew
by her
delicate pastry
and makeshift
banana this
creme du jour
is a
burden of
the issue
of clericalism
Mar 5, 2021
Mar 5, 2021 at 10:28 AM UTC
I took a detour on Decatur Street
for the rains washed away my worn trail.
Smoking skeletons in alley ways,
the visible breath of babies in sleet,
and a burnt out apartment complex dotted the trek.
I saw a ghost of you.
Short red hair, eyelashes like vines crawling up sideboards in fast motion,
the freckles on her face like islands floating in her milky skin.
I wanted to pull your twin close.
As if entwining with her, scraping off a pinch of her perfume,
would bring me a few miles closer to you.
I'd phone, but you'd just tell me about Paul.
So, I send whiskey prayers and cigarette smoke signals
to the heavens for your personal misery instead.
I daydream of the torturous night shortening the distance.
You offering up laughs of compromise,
and I offering empty love to make your bed less lonely.
I'd phone, but you'd just tell me about Paul.
He's your man.
Nov 8, 2011
Nov 8, 2011 at 7:38 PM UTC
The midway queen
And her glossy posse
Flutter in formation
Up and down the B-29s and the AN-24s;
On the prowl and on a mission
To drop the bomb on Bobby
As they swoop past his snow cone cart.
They call themselves the Wing Women.
They call themselves the Tail Gunners.
They call themselves the Shotgun Girls,
And there’s powder residue in their curls.
Tail Gunners haunt the midway strip at twilight,
Feasting on the fiddle music
And old time pedal steel
That haunt a country boy’s heart.
But the sun has already checked out,
Along with Bobby and his shop pals--
Slipped off in granddad’s Cadillac
With a jug of John Henry
And a bag of M-80’s
Billy brought down from Decatur.
They’ve headed for the low country;
Toward the clinking of green glass,
The hollering of the swamp hounds,
And the flannel sheet warmth of the river folks.
Back on the midway,
Shotgun Girls peel off one by one
Like petals from a flower,
Pedaling back to rose scented spreads
Garnished with chlorinated pools and garden parties.
But the midway queen pilots on;
Around the Stewart’s root beer stand,
Through a cloud of Blazing Swine smoke,
Past the kind-eyed ice cream lady,
And into the seedy underbelly
Where clown grins lurk behind balloon tosses
And rebel flag trailer curtains lace the landscape.
Understanding her defeat,
The midway queen retreats
To her own suburban sprawl,
Places her crown on the dresser,
And gazes through open windows
Into her Georgia sky,
Wondering what it’s like to be a constellation--
Wondering if constellations come up with five-year plans--
Wondering if she should do the same.
The midway queen quivers
In her new found old time way,
And drifts off into a glassy sea
Of crackling Tammy Wynette records
And broken heart banquets.
Dec 6, 2015
Dec 6, 2015 at 6:04 PM UTC
J'ai toujours sous la main
Une ou deux molécules de ma muse effervescente,
Sa poudrière et sa houppe pour le teint.
Et quand vient le boléro de la migraine
Et que l'hallali explose dans ma tête en pleine chasse à courre
Et que c'est la curée chaude
Je rappelle la meute des mots chiens et taureaux
Et je transforme en plein couvent les kilomètres de petit-lait entier en fa dièse mineur
De ma Decatur ecclésiastique
En AOP.
AOP,
C'est Aspirine et Antimoine,
Les deux vocalises de ma muse,
Deux sœurs siamoises,
Deux divas effervescentes de Cadix
Que nul bistouri ne peut disjoindre
Quand en duo, aveugles, elles dansent leur boléro dans un bain d'encre
Allegretto con moto
Au son des cors de chasse
Au lieu des castagnettes.
Ces deux divas sont une lettre d'indulgence,
Un passeport incunable pour le paradis,
Dont je suis l'enlumineur, le rubricateur, l'imprimeur, le relieur
Et l'auteur.
J'imprime à grand tirage leur psautier poisseux sur deux colonnes
Et quarante deux lignes
Oct 26, 2019
Oct 26, 2019 at 9:00 AM UTC
*The tawny autumn pastures of Whitehouse
Home of Ozias , the graves of my kin
Miller's Millstone and the Selfridge banks
of Cotton Indian , Roseberry field , Wilson
Chicks Farm , Camp creek and Berry Hill ...
Candy beside Rabbit Rock , bicycles along Decatur
Road , locks of honeysuckle , broomsage , parcels
of soybean and sorghum , sweetcorn and home gardens ..
Fiddlers *** along South rivers sandy banks and islands
Yellow Perch , smallmouth , rock bass and calico*
Feb 14, 2017
Feb 14, 2017 at 9:31 AM UTC
Transatlantic feeling frantic on route to Milan to see a man
To listen to sages and the academic elite talk of wormholes and conciousness beliefs
Presentations and conversations by those at the top of their game
But concentrate as she might long into the stary night the rhythm was always there..
Off again and on a plane over the North Sea
Stronger and stronger the beat would wander into her dreams
Touching land there he was his face as shocked as hers
For both had been listening to nothing more than the music of their hearts
Two years have past and governments and continents could no longer divide them
So if you look in Atlanta Decatur you are now sure to find them
Just ask anyone where is bongo Pete or just close your eyes at night
Then follow the sound of the distant drumming, you will surely find them
When you reach a blues joint look inside and there for all to see
Now husband and Wife, and playing all night
Mr and Mrs Lornie
Mar 30, 2016
Mar 30, 2016 at 3:11 PM UTC
I want every account a appeal imma post my **** during a **** beach or **** march imma make an only fans imma **** outside imma rub my **** so my neighbor see so stop looking you bust a nut too
Lock you away like me breakfast tucked hard ****
What they feeding me
Ask arnold an adam
Video tape before video tape
Blow my phone up stressing
Didnt you just *** ur wife in the bedroom
Catch me dead ****** imma erase you
I got that mafia gang 100 million march ****
Floyd my boi so i spoke
Zacks a king type riot
I make 8k a year audit me *****
Call a fed decatur already been overdose
Moon lazor gun
Kematite
Worthy worthy king wife top my ****
Naked **** a mansion
Naked in a castle
No little bitty
Breakfast in bed **** a ***
Gleyn oaks
Charleston boodakey
Lost count at infinite keys
I built the 1st
1st highway amazon jungle
1st gas station diesel
Bag chip radioactive
Chrystal
1 gazzillion **** a movie
5 foot an taller then godzilla
Bigger travel bags then king kong
Feb 21, 2024
Feb 21, 2024 at 8:59 PM UTC