"halstead" poems
*That house on Halstead,
with its rod-iron rusted gate,
that creaks eerily and groans when pushed aside,
looks abandoned.
Sparse lemons splayed the patches of dead earth where nothing grows, while ants playfully dance on their yellow-grey skins.
Your 1980s Kawasaki vibrating beneath us,
I'm holding you tightly as we rock back and forth on your driveway.
And we are heading nowhere. I know this, but I don't care.
I gaze at you in the circular side view mirror,
donning bed head, and your dusty clothes that moments before lingered on your bedroom floor. Arms still grasping you.
But right now, you don't see me. You never really did.
I catch a glimpse of myself, sullen lustful eyes and wild raven tresses.
You tore me apart piece by piece, my ego bruised like the dried out lemon husks we sometimes would pick up and squeeze juice from for our tea.*
Sep 10, 2016
Sep 10, 2016 at 9:49 PM UTC
Chicago Common Brick
The Great Fire
ancient history by the time
we take our morning stroll out
Belmont Avenue to Lake Shore Drive
skirting pandemonium’s
high water mark where wails
from Randolph Street Bridge
would have rang thin as rhyme
on wax cylinder
City of the Big Shoulders
rebuilt to resist fire, lure you away
with its siren song, careless lyrics
I yearn to rewrite and sing to you
as we cross Halstead oblivious
to Chicago common brick
prairie dun and durable
second story turrets
biding time until streetlights
render them details in a Hopper painting.
Oct 27, 2016
Oct 27, 2016 at 7:57 AM UTC