FIRST DAY

1.
Who wanted me
to go to Chicago
on January 6th?
I did!

The night before,
20 below zero
Fahrenheit
with the wind chill;
as the blizzard of 99
lay in mountains
of blackening snow.

I packed two coats,
two suits,
three sweaters,
multiple sets of long johns
and heavy white socks
for a two-day stay.

I left from Newark.
**** the denseness,
it confounds!

The 2nd City to whom?
2nd ain’t bad.
It’s pretty good.
If you consider
Peking and Prague,
Tokyo and Togo,
Manchester and Moscow,
Port Au Prince and Paris,
Athens and Amsterdam,
Buenos Aries and Johannesburg;
that’s pretty good.

What’s going on here today?
It’s friggin frozen.
To the bone!

But Chi Town is still cool.
Buddy Guy’s is open.
Bartenders mixing drinks,
cabbies jamming on their breaks,
honey dew waitresses serving sugar,
buildings swerving,
fire tongued preachers are preaching
and the farmers are measuring the moon.

The lake,
unlike Ontario
is in the midst of freezing.
Bones of ice
threaten to gel
into a solid mass
over the expanse
of the Michigan Lake.
If this keeps up,
you can walk
clear to Toronto
on a silver carpet.

Along the shore
the ice is permanent.
It’s the first big frost
of winter
after a long
Indian Summer.

Thank God
I caught a cab.
Outside I hear
The Hawk
nippin hard.
It’ll get your ear,
finger or toe.
Bite you on the nose too
if you ain’t careful.

Thank God,
I’m not walking
the Wabash tonight;
but if you do cover up,
wear layers.

Chicago,
could this be
Sandburg’s City?

I’m overwhelmed
and this is my tenth time here.

It’s almost better,
sometimes it is better,
a lot of times it is better
and denser then New York.

Ask any Bull’s fan.
I’m a Knickerbocker.
Yes Nueva York,
a city that has placed last
in the standings
for many years.
Except the last two.
Yanks are # 1!

But Chicago
is a dynasty,
as big as
Sammy Sosa’s heart,
rich and wide
as Michael Jordan’s grin.

Middle of a country,
center of a continent,
smack dab in the mean
of a hemisphere,
vortex to a world,
Chicago!

Kansas City,
Nashville,
St. Louis,
Detroit,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
Denver,
New Orleans,
Dallas,
Cairo,
Singapore,
Auckland,
Baghdad,
Mexico City
and Montreal
salute her.



2.
Cities,
A collection of vanities?
Engineered complex utilitarianism?
The need for community a social necessity?
Ego one with the mass?
Civilization’s latest *******?
Chicago is more then that.

Jefferson’s yeoman farmer
is long gone
but this capitol
of the Great Plains
is still democratic.

The citizen’s of this city
would vote daily,
if they could.

Chicago,
Sandburg’s Chicago,
Could it be?

The namesake river
segments the city,
canals of commerce,
all perpendicular,
is rife throughout,
still guiding barges
to the Mississippi
and St. Laurence.

Now also
tourist attractions
for a cafe society.

Chicago is really jazzy,
swanky clubs,
big steaks,
juices and drinks.

You get the best
coffee from Seattle
and the finest teas
from China.

Great restaurants
serve liquid jazz
al la carte.

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they serve is Jazz
Rock me steady
Keep the beat
Keep it flowin
Feel the heat!

Jazz Jazz Jazz
All they is, is Jazz
Fast cars will take ya
To the show
Round bout midnight
Where’d the time go?

Flows into the Mississippi,
the mother of America’s rivers,
an empires aorta.

Great Lakes wonder of water.
Niagara Falls
still her heart gushes forth.

Buffalo connected to this holy heart.
Finger Lakes and Adirondacks
are part of this watershed,
all the way down to the
Delaware and Chesapeake.

Sandburg’s Chicago?
Oh my my,
the wonder of him.
Who captured the imagination
of the wonders of rivers.

Down stream other holy cities
from the Mississippi delta
all mapped by him.

Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet
guarded by righteous Cajun brethren.

Midwest?
Midwest from where?
It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles,
east of Fairbanks,
west of Dublin
and south of not much.

Him,
who spoke of honest men
and loving women.
Working men and mothers
bearing citizens to build a nation.
The New World’s
precocious adolescent
caught in a stream
of endless and exciting change,
much pain and sacrifice,
dedication and loss,
pride and tribulations.

From him we know
all the people’s faces.
All their stories are told.
Never defeating the
idea of Chicago.

Sandburg had the courage to say
what was in the heart of the people, who:

Defeated the Indians,
Mapped the terrain,
Aided slavers,
Fought a terrible civil war,
Hoisted the barges,
Grew the food,
Whacked the wheat,
Sang the songs,
Fought many wars of conquest,
Cleared the land,
Erected the bridges,
Trapped the game,
Netted the fish,
Mined the coal,
Forged the steel,
Laid the tracks,
Fired the tenders,
Cut the stone,
Mixed the mortar,
Plumbed the line,
And laid the bricks
Of this nation of cities!

Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick.
It’s a poor expostulation of
crass commercial symbolism.

Like I said, I’m a
Devil Fan from Jersey
and Madison Avenue
has done its work on me.

It’s a strange alchemy
that changes
a proud Nation of Blackhawks
into a merchandising bonanza
of hometown hockey shirts,
making the native seem alien,
and the interloper at home chillin out,
warming his feet atop a block of ice,
guzzling Old Style
with clicker in hand.

Give him his beer
and other diversions.
If he bowls with his buddy’s
on Tuesday night
I hope he bowls
a perfect game.

He’s earned it.
He works hard.
Hard work and faith
built this city.

And it’s not just the faith
that fills the cities
thousand churches,
temples and
mosques on the Sabbath.

3.
There is faith in everything in Chicago!

An alcoholic broker named Bill
lives the Twelve Steps
to banish fear and loathing
for one more day.
Bill believes in sobriety.

A tug captain named Moe
waits for the spring thaw
so he can get the barges up to Duluth.
Moe believes in the seasons.

A farmer named Tom
hopes he has reaped the last
of many bitter harvests.
Tom believes in a new start.

A homeless man named Earl
wills himself a cot and a hot
at the local shelter.
Earl believes in deliverance.

A Pullman porter
named George
works overtime
to get his first born
through medical school.
George believes in opportunity.

A folk singer named Woody
sings about his
countrymen inheritance
and implores them to take it.
Woody believes in people.

A Wobbly named Joe
organizes fellow steelworkers
to fight for a workers paradise
here on earth.
Joe believes in ideals.

A bookkeeper named Edith
is certain she’ll see the Cubs
win the World Series
in her lifetime.
Edith believes in miracles.

An electrician named ****
saves money
to bring his family over from Gdansk.
**** believes in America.

A banker named Leah
knows Ditka will return
and lead the Bears
to another Super Bowl.
Leah believes in nostalgia.

A cantor named Samuel
prays for another 20 years
so he can properly train
his Temple’s replacement.

Samuel believes in tradition.
A high school girl named Sally
refuses to get an abortion.
She knows she carries
something special within her.
Sally believes in life.

A city worker named Mazie
ceaselessly prays
for her incarcerated son
doing 10 years at Cook.
Mazie believes in redemption.

A jazzer named Bix
helps to invent a new art form
out of the mist.
Bix believes in creativity.

An architect named Frank
restores the Rookery.
Frank believes in space.

A soldier named Ike
fights wars for democracy.
Ike believes in peace.

A Rabbi named Jesse
sermonizes on Moses.
Jesse believes in liberation.

Somewhere in Chicago
a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe.
The kid believes in
the integrity of the game.

An Imam named Louis
is busy building a nation
within a nation.
Louis believes in
self-determination.

A teacher named Heidi
gives all she has to her students.
She has great expectations for them all.
Heidi believes in the future.

4.
Does Chicago have a future?

This city,
full of cowboys
and wildcatters
is predicated
on a future!

Bang, bang
Shoot em up
Stake the claim
It’s your terrain
Drill the hole
Strike it rich
Top it off
You’re the boss
Take a chance
Watch it wane
Try again
Heavenly gains

Chicago
city of futures
is a Holy Mecca
to all day traders.

Their skin is gray,
hair disheveled,
loud ties and
funny coats,
thumb through
slips of paper
held by nail
chewed hands.
Selling promises
with no derivative value
for out of the money calls
and in the money puts.
Strike is not a labor action
in this city of unionists,
but a speculators mark,
a capitalist wish,
a hedgers bet,
a public debt
and a farmers
fair return.

Indexes for everything.
Quantitative models
that could burst a kazoo.

You know the measure
of everything in Chicago.
But is it truly objective?
Have mathematics banished
subjective intentions,
routing it in fair practice
of market efficiencies,
a kind of scientific absolution?

I heard that there
is a dispute brewing
over the amount of snowfall
that fell on the 1st.

The mayor’s office,
using the official city ruler
measured 22”
of snow on the ground.

The National Weather Service
says it cannot detect more
then 17” of snow.

The mayor thinks
he’ll catch less heat
for the trains that don’t run
the buses that don’t arrive
and the schools that stand empty
with the addition of 5”.

The analysts say
it’s all about capturing liquidity.

Liquidity,
can you place a great lake
into an eyedropper?

Its 20 below
and all liquid things
are solid masses
or a gooey viscosity at best.

Water is frozen everywhere.
But Chi town is still liquid,
flowing faster
then the digital blips
flashing on the walls
of the CBOT.

Dreams
are never frozen in Chicago.
The exchanges trade
without missing a beat.

Trading wet dreams,
the crystallized vapor
of an IPO
pledging a billion points
of Internet access
or raiding the public treasuries
of a central bank’s
huge stores of gold
with currency swaps.

Using the tools
of butterfly spreads
and candlesticks
to achieve the goal.

Short the Russell
or buy the Dow,
go long the
CAC and DAX.
Are you trading in euro’s?
You better be
or soon will.
I know
you’re Chicago,
you’ll trade anything.
WEBS,
Spiders,
and Leaps
are traded here,
along with sweet crude,
North Sea Brent,
plywood and T-Bill futures;
and most importantly
the commodities,
the loam
that formed this city
of broad shoulders.

What about our wheat?
Still whacking and
breadbasket to the world.

Oil,
an important fossil fuel
denominated in
good ole greenbacks.

Porkbellies,
not just hogwash
on the Wabash,
but bacon, eggs
and flapjacks
are on the menu
of every diner in Jersey
as the “All American.”

Cotton,
our contribution
to the Golden Triangle,
once the global currency
used to enrich a
gentlemen class
of cultured
southern slavers,
now Tommy Hilfiger’s
preferred fabric.

I think he sends it
to Bangkok where
child slaves
spin it into
gold lame'.

Sorghum,
I think its hardy.

Soybeans,
the new age substitute
for hamburger
goes great with tofu lasagna.

Corn,
ADM creates ethanol,
they want us to drive cleaner cars.

Cattle,
once driven into this city’s
bloodhouses for slaughter,
now ground into
a billion Big Macs
every year.

When does a seed
become a commodity?
When does a commodity
become a future?
When does a future expire?

You can find the answers
to these questions in Chicago
and find a fortune in a hole in the floor.

Look down into the pits.
Hear the screams of anguish
and profitable delights.

Frenzied men
swarming like a mass
of epileptic ants
atop the worlds largest sugar cube
auger the worlds free markets.

The scene is
more chaotic then
100 Haymarket Square Riots
multiplied by 100
1968 Democratic Conventions.

Amidst inverted anthills,
they scurry forth and to
in distinguished
black and red coats.

Fighting each other
as counterparties
to a life and death transaction.

This is an efficient market
that crosses the globe.

Oil from the Sultan of Brunei,
Yen from the land of Hitachi,
Long Bonds from the Fed,
nickel from Quebec,
platinum and palladium
from Siberia,
FTSE’s from London
and crewel cane from Havana
circle these pits.

Tijuana,
Shanghai
and Istanbul's
best traders
are only half as good
as the average trader in Chicago.

Chicago,
this hog butcher to the world,
specializes in packaging and distribution.

Men in blood soaked smocks,
still count the heads
entering the gates of the city.

Their handiwork
is sent out on barges
and rail lines as frozen packages
of futures
waiting for delivery
to an anonymous counterparty
half a world away.

This nation’s hub
has grown into the
premier purveyor
to the world;
along all the rivers,
highways,
railways
and estuaries
it’s tentacles reach.

5.
Sandburg’s Chicago,
is a city of the world’s people.

Many striver rows compose
its many neighborhoods.

Nordic stoicism,
Eastern European orthodoxy
and Afro-American
calypso vibrations
are three of many cords
strumming the strings
of Chicago.

Sandburg’s Chicago,
if you wrote forever
you would only scratch its surface.

People wait for trains
to enter the city from O’Hare.
Frozen tears
lock their eyes
onto distant skyscrapers,
solid chunks
of snot blocks their nose
and green icicles of slime
crust mustaches.
They fight to breathe.

Sandburg’s Chicago
is The Land of Lincoln,
Savior of the Union,
protector of the Republic.
Sent armies
of sons and daughters,
barges, boxcars,
gunboats, foodstuffs,
cannon and shot
to raze the south
and stamp out succession.

Old Abe’s biography
are still unknown volumes to me.
I must see and read the great words.
You can never learn enough;
but I’ve been to Washington
and seen the man’s memorial.
The Free World’s 8th wonder,
guarded by General Grant,
who still keeps an eye on Richmond
and a hand on his sword.

Through this American winter
Abe ponders.
The vista he surveys is dire and tragic.

Our sitting President
impeached
for lying about a *******.

Party partisans
in the senate are sworn and seated.
Our Chief Justice,
adorned with golden bars
will adjudicate the proceedings.
It is the perfect counterpoint
to an ageless Abe thinking
with malice toward none
and charity towards all,
will heal the wounds
of the nation.

Abe our granite angel,
Chicago goes on,
The Union is strong!


SECOND DAY

1.
Out my window
the sun has risen.

According to
the local forecast
its minus 9
going up to
6 today.

The lake,
a golden pillow of clouds
is frozen in time.

I marvel
at the ancients ones
resourcefulness
and how
they mastered
these extreme elements.

Past, present and future
has no meaning
in the Citadel
of the Prairie today.

I set my watch
to Central Standard Time.

Stepping into
the hotel lobby
the concierge
with oil smooth hair,
perfect tie
and English lilt
impeccably asks,
“Do you know where you are going Sir?
Can I give you a map?”

He hands me one of Chicago.
I see he recently had his nails done.
He paints a green line
along Whacker Drive and says,
“turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison
and you’ll get to where you want to go.”
A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville-
(I start at The Chicago White House.
They call it that because Hillary Rodham
stays here when she’s in town.
Its’ also alleged that Stedman
eats his breakfast here
but Opra
has never been seen
on the premises.
I wonder how I gained entry
into this place of elite’s?)
-down into the center of The Loop.

Stepping out of the hotel,
The Doorman
sporting the epaulets of a colonel
on his corporate winter coat
and furry Cossack hat
swaddling his round black face
accosts me.

The skin of his face
is flaking from
the subzero windburn.

He asks me
with a gapped toothy grin,
“Can I get you a cab?”
“No I think I’ll walk,” I answer.
“Good woolen hat,
thick gloves you should be alright.”
He winks and lets me pass.

I step outside.
The Windy City
flings stabbing cold spears
flying on wings of 30-mph gusts.
My outside hardens.
I can feel the freeze
deepen
into my internalness.
I can’t be sure
but inside
my heart still feels warm.
For how long
I cannot say.

I commence
my walk
among the spires
of this great city,
the vertical leaps
that anchor the great lake,
holding its place
against the historic
frigid assault.

The buildings’ sway,
modulating to the blows
of natures wicked blasts.

It’s a hard imposition
on a city and its people.

The gloves,
skullcap,
long underwear,
sweater,
jacket
and overcoat
not enough
to keep the cold
from penetrating
the person.

Like discerning
the layers of this city,
even many layers,
still not enough
to understand
the depth of meaning
of the heart
of this heartland city.

Sandburg knew the city well.
Set amidst groves of suburbs
that extend outward in every direction.
Concentric circles
surround the city.
After the burbs come farms,
Great Plains, and mountains.
Appalachians and Rockies
are but mere molehills
in the city’s back yard.
It’s terra firma
stops only at the sea.
Pt. Barrow to the Horn,
many capes extended.

On the periphery
its appendages,
its extremities,
its outward extremes.
All connected by the idea,
blown by the incessant wind
of this great nation.
The Windy City’s message
is sent to the world’s four corners.
It is a message of power.
English the worlds
common language
is spoken here,
along with Ebonics,
Espanol,
Mandarin,
Czech,
Russian,
Korean,
Arabic,
Hindi­,
German,
French,
electronics,
steel,
cars,
cartoons,
rap,
sports­,
movies,
capital,
wheat
and more.

Always more.
Much much more
in Chicago.

2.
Sandburg
spoke all the dialects.

He heard them all,
he understood
with great precision
to the finest tolerances
of a lathe workers micrometer.

Sandburg understood
what it meant to laugh
and be happy.

He understood
the working mans day,
the learned treatises
of university chairs,
the endless tomes
of the city’s
great libraries,
the lost languages
of the ancient ones,
the secret codes
of abstract art,
the impact of architecture,
the street dialects and idioms
of everymans expression of life.

All fighting for life,
trying to build a life,
a new life
in this modern world.

Walking across
the Michigan Avenue Bridge
I see the Wrigley Building
is neatly carved,
catty cornered on the plaza.

I wonder if Old Man Wrigley
watched his barges
loaded with spearmint
and double-mint
move out onto the lake
from one of those Gothic windows
perched high above the street.

Would he open a window
and shout to the men below
to quit slaking and work harder
or would he
between the snapping sound
he made with his mouth
full of his chewing gum
offer them tickets
to a ballgame at Wrigley Field
that afternoon?

Would the men below
be able to understand
the man communing
from such a great height?

I listen to a man
and woman conversing.
They are one step behind me
as we meander along Wacker Drive.

"You are in Chicago now.”
The man states with profundity.
“If I let you go
you will soon find your level
in this city.
Do you know what I mean?”

No I don’t.
I think to myself.
What level are you I wonder?
Are you perched atop
the transmission spire
of the Hancock Tower?

I wouldn’t think so
or your ears would melt
from the windburn.

I’m thinking.
Is she a kept woman?
She is majestically clothed
in fur hat and coat.
In animal pelts
not trapped like her,
but slaughtered
from farms
I’m sure.

What level
is he speaking of?

Many levels
are evident in this city;
many layers of cobbled stone,
Pennsylvania iron,
Hoosier Granite
and vertical drops.

I wonder
if I detect
condensation
in his voice?

What is
his intention?
Is it a warning
of a broken affair?
A pending pink slip?
Advise to an addict
refusing to adhere
to a recovery regimen?

What is his level anyway?
Is he so high and mighty,
Higher and mightier
then this great city
which we are all a part of,
which we all helped to build,
which we all need
in order to keep this nation
the thriving democratic
empire it is?

This seditious talk!

3.
The Loop’s El
still courses through
the main thoroughfares of the city.

People are transported
above the din of the street,
looking down
on the common pedestrians
like me.

Super CEO’s
populating the upper floors
of Romanesque,
Greek Revivalist,
New Bauhaus,
Art Deco
and Post Nouveau
Neo-Modern
Avant-Garde towers
are too far up
to see me
shivering on the street.

The cars, busses,
trains and trucks
are all covered
with the film
of rock salt.

Salt covers
my bootless feet
and smudges
my cloths as well.

The salt,
the primal element
of the earth
covers everything
in Chicago.

It is the true level
of this city.

The layer
beneath
all layers,
on which
everything
rests,
is built,
grows,
thrives
then dies.
To be
returned again
to the lower
layers
where it can
take root
again
and grow
out onto
the great plains.

Splashing
the nation,
anointing
its people
with its
blessing.

A blessing,
Chicago?

All rivers
come here.

All things
found its way here
through the canals
and back bays
of the world’s
greatest lakes.

All roads,
rails and
air routes
begin and
end here.

Mrs. O’Leary’s cow
got a *** rap.
It did not start the fire,
we did.

We lit the torch
that flamed
the city to cinders.
From a pile of ash
Chicago rose again.

Forever Chicago!
Forever the lamp
that burns bright
on a Great Lake’s
western shore!

Chicago
the beacon
sends the
message to the world
with its windy blasts,
on chugging barges,
clapping trains,
flying tandems,
T1 circuits
and roaring jets.

Sandburg knew
a Chicago
I will never know.

He knew
the rhythm of life
the people walked to.
The tools they used,
the dreams they dreamed
the songs they sang,
the things they built,
the things they loved,
the pains that hurt,
the motives that grew,
the actions that destroyed
the prayers they prayed,
the food they ate
their moments of death.

Sandburg knew
the layers of the city
to the depths
and windy heights
I cannot fathom.

The Blues
came to this city,
on the wing
of a chirping bird,
on the taps
of a rickety train,
on the blast
of an angry sax
rushing on the wind,
on the Westend blitz
of Pop's brash coronet,
on the tink of
a twinkling piano
on a paddle-wheel boat
and on the strings
of a lonely man’s guitar.

Walk into the clubs,
tenements,
row houses,
speakeasies
and you’ll hear the Blues
whispered like
a quiet prayer.

Tidewater Blues
from Virginia,
Delta Blues
from the lower
Mississippi,
Boogie Woogie
from Appalachia,
Texas Blues
from some Lone Star,
Big Band Blues
from Kansas City,
Blues from
Beal Street,
Jelly Roll’s Blues
from the Latin Quarter.

Hell even Chicago
got its own brand
of Blues.

Its all here.
It ended up here
and was sent away
on the winds of westerly blows
to the ear of an eager world
on strong jet streams
of simple melodies
and hard truths.

A broad
shouldered woman,
a single mother stands
on the street
with three crying babes.
Their cloths
are covered
in salt.
She pleads
for a break,
praying
for a new start.
Poor and
under-clothed
against the torrent
of frigid weather
she begs for help.
Her blond hair
and ****** features
suggests her
Scandinavian heritage.
I wonder if
she is related to Sandburg
as I walk past
her on the street.
Her feet
are bleeding
through her
canvass sneakers.
Her babes mouths
are zipped shut
with frozen drivel
and mucous.

The Blues live
on in Chicago.

The Blues
will forever live in her.
As I turn the corner
to walk the Miracle Mile
I see her engulfed
in a funnel cloud of salt,
snow and bits
of white paper,
swirling around her
and her children
in an angry
unforgiving
maelstrom.

The family
begins to
dissolve
like a snail
sprinkled with salt;
and a mother
and her children
just disappear
into the pavement
at the corner
of Dearborn,
in Chicago.

Music:

Robert Johnson
Sweet Home Chicago


jbm
Chicago
1/7/99

(poems from the Chinese translated by Arthur Waley)

Last night the clouds scattered away;
A thousand leagues, the same moonlight scene.
When dawn came, I dreamt I saw your face;
It must have been that you were thinking of me.
In my dream, I thought I held your hand
And asked you to tell me what your thoughts were.
And you said: ‘I miss you bitterly . . . “

As Helen drifted into sleep the source of that imagined voice in her last conscious moment was waking several hundred miles away. For so long now she was his first and only waking thought. He stretched his hand out to touch her side with his fingertips, not a touch more the lightest brush: he did not wish to wake her. But she was elsewhere. He was alone. His imagination had to bring her to him instead. Sometimes she was so vivid a thought, a presence more like, that he felt her body surround him, her hand stroke the back of his neck, her ******* fall and spread against his chest, her breath kiss his nose and cheek. He felt conscious he had yet to shave, conscious his rough face should not touch her delicate freckled complexion . . . but he was alone and his body ached for her.

It was always like this when they were apart, and particularly so when she was away from home and full to the brim with the variously rich activities and opportunities that made up her life. He knew she might think of him, but there was this feeling he was missing a part of her living he would never see or know. True, she would speak to him on the phone, but sadly he still longed to read her once bright descriptions that had in the past enabled him to enter her solo experiences in a way no image seemed to allow. But he had resolved to put such possible gifts to one side. So instead he would invent such descriptions himself: a good, if time-consuming compromise. He would give himself an hour at his desk; an hour, had he been with her, they might have spent in each other’s arms welcoming the day with such a love-making he could hardly bare to think about: it was always, always more wonderful than he could possibly have imagined.

He had been at a concert the previous evening. He’d taken the train to a nearby town and chosen to hear just one work in the second part. Before the interval there had been a strange confection of Bernstein, Vaughan-Williams and Saint-Saens. He had preferred to listen to *The Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz. There was something a little special about attending a concert to hear a single work. You could properly prepare yourself for the experience and take away a clear memory of the music. He had read the score on the train journey, a journey across a once industrial and mining heartland that had become an abandoned wasteland: a river and canal running in tandem, a vast but empty marshalling yard, acres of water-filled gravel pits, factory and mill buildings standing empty and in decay. On this early evening of a thoroughly wet and cold June day he would lift his gaze to the window to observe this sad landscape shrouded in a grey mist tinted with mottled green.

Andrew often considered Berlioz a kind of fellow-traveller on his life’s journey of music. Berlioz too had been a guitarist in his teenage years and had been largely self-taught as a composer. He had been an innovator in his use of the orchestra and developed a body of work that closely mirrored the literature and political mores of his time.  The Symphonie Fantastique was the ultimate love letter: to the adorable Harriet Smithson, the Irish actress. Berlioz had seen her play Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (see above) and immediately imagined her as his muse and life’s partner. He wrote hundreds of letters to her before eventually meeting her to declare his love and admiration in person. A friend took her to hear the Symphonie after it had got about that this radical work was dedicated to her. She was appalled! But, when Berlioz wrote Lélio or The Return to Life, a kind of sequel to his Symphonie, she relented and agreed to meet him. They married in 1833 but parted after a tempestuous seven years. It had surprised Andrew to discover Lélio, about which, until quite recently, he had known nothing. The Berlioz scholar David Cairns had written fully and quite lovingly about the composition, but reading the synopsis in Wikipedia he began to understand it might be a trifle embarrassing to present in a concert.

The programme of Lélio describes the artist wakening from these dreams, musing on Shakespeare, his sad life, and not having a woman. He decides that if he can't put this unrequited love out of his head, he will immerse himself in music. He then leads an orchestra to a successful performance of one of his new compositions and the story ends peacefully.

Lélio consists of six musical pieces presented by an actor who stands on stage in front of a curtain concealing the orchestra. The actor's dramatic monologues explain the meaning of the music in the life of the artist. The work begins and ends with the idée fixe theme, linking Lélio to Symphonie fantastique.

Thoughts of the lovely Harriet brought him to thoughts of his own muse, far away. He had written so many letters to his muse, and now he wrote her little stories instead, often imagining moments in their still separate lives. He had written music for her and about her – a Quintet for piano and winds (after Mozart) based on a poem he’d written about a languorous summer afternoon beside a river in the Yorkshire Dales; a book of songs called Pleasing Myself (his first venture into setting his own words). Strangely enough he had read through those very songs just the other day. How they captured the onset of both his regard and his passion for her! He had written poetic words in her voice, and for her clear voice to sing:

As the light dies
I pace the field edge
to the square pond
enclosed, hedged and treed.
The water,
once revealed,
lies cold
in the still air.

At its bank,
solitary,
I let my thoughts of you
float on the surface.
And like two boats
moored abreast
at the season’s end,
our reflections merge
in one dark form.

His words he felt were true to the model of the Chinese poetry he had loved as a teenager, verse that had helped him fashion his fledgling thoughts in music.

And so it was that while she dined brightly with her team in a Devon country pub, he sat alone in a town hall in West Yorkshire listening to Berlioz’ autobiographical and unrequited work.

A young musician of extraordinary sensibility and abundant imagination, in the depths of despair because of hopeless love, has poisoned himself with *****. The drug is too feeble to **** him but plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by weird visions. His sensations, emotions, and memories, as they pass through his affected mind, are transformed into musical images and ideas. The beloved one herself becomes to him a melody, a recurrent theme [idée fixe] which haunts him continually.

Yes, he could identify with some of that. Reading Berlioz’ own programme note in the orchestral score he remembered the disabling effect of his first love, a slight girl with long hair tied with a simple white scarf. Then he thought of what he knew would be his last love, his only and forever love when he had talked to her, interrupting her concentration, in a college workshop. She had politely dealt with his innocent questions and then, looking at the clock told him she ‘had to get on’. It was only later – as he sat outside in the university gardens - that he realized the affect that brief encounter might have on him. It was as though in those brief minutes he knew nothing of her, but also everything he ever needed to know. Strange how the images of that meeting, the sound of her voice haunted him, would appear unbidden - until two months later a chance meeting in a corridor had jolted him into her presence again  . . . and for always he hoped.

After the music had finished he had remained in the auditorium as the rather slight audience took their leave. The resonance of the music seemed to be a still presence and he had there and then scanned back and forward through the music’s memory. The piece had cheered him, given him a little hope against the prevailing difficulties and problems of his own musical creativity, the long, often empty hours at his desk. He was in a quiet despair about his current work, about his current life if he was honest. He wondered at the way Berlioz’ musical material seemed of such a piece with its orchestration. The conception of the music itself was full of rough edges; it had none of that exemplary finish of a Beethoven symphony so finely chiseled to perfection.  Berlioz’ Symphonie contained inspired and trite elements side by side, bar beside bar. It missed that wholeness Beethoven achieved with his carefully honed and positioned harmonic structures, his relentless editing and rewriting. With Berlioz you reckoned he trusted himself to let what was in his imagination flow onto the page unhindered by technical issues. Andrew had experienced that occasionally, and looking at his past pieces, was often amazed that such music could be, and was, his alone.

Returning to his studio there was a brief text from his muse. He was tempted to phone her. But it was late and he thought she might already be asleep. He sat for a while and imagined her at dinner with the team, more relaxed now than previously. Tired from a long day of looking and talking and thinking and planning and imagining (herself in the near future), she had worn her almost vintage dress and the bright, bright smile with her diligent self-possessed manner. And taking it (the smile) into her hotel bedroom, closing the door on her public self, she had folded it carefully on the chair with her clothes - to be bright and bright for her colleagues at breakfast next day and beyond. She undressed and sitting on the bed in her pajamas imagined for a brief moment being folded in his arms, being gently kissed goodnight. Too tired to read, she brought herself to bed with a mental list of all the things she must and would do in the morning time and when she got home – and slept.

*They came and told me a messenger from Shang-chou
Had brought a letter, - a simple scroll from you!
Up from my pillow I suddenly sprang out of bed,
And threw on my clothes, all topsy-turvey.
I undid the knot and saw the letter within:
A single sheet with thirteen lines of writing.
At the top it told the sorrows of an exile’s heart;
At the bottom it described the pains of separation.
The sorrows and pains took up so much space
There was no room to talk about the weather!

The girl behind the mask wasnt who she seemed
She made everyone fall and come to believe
That even the saddest people could be happy
Just for a while until things became sappy  

The girl behind the mask tend to laugh alot
At jokes she found were funny, or maybe not
She showed everyone how lovely she could be
But in reality all she wanted was to go and leave

The girl behind the mask was bullied all day
Very few times would the kids let her play
But as the years past, this just proceded
And made her think that death should be succeeded

The girl behind the mask was soon no more
She discovered the ropes would make her soar
Through the clouds in heaven that would go so high
Now she was finally happy to really be alive

The girl behind the mask was living the dream
While everyone on earth soon began to greave
Even though she thought no one cared for her
Life without her quickly became a huge blur

The girl behind the mask looked down one night
To see that her sister had goined the flight
She came up to her and asked why she was here
And she answered this is suicidal girls only good fear

The girl behind the mask did not understand
Why her sister had goined this holy heartland
Then she realized that because of her choice
Her sister decided to leave earth to hear her voice

The girl behind the mask began to cry
She ended her sister's life so that she could come to fly
She discovered that maybe instead of having to say goodbye
She could've gotten someone to help her stay alive

The girl behind the mask soon did find
That maybe suicide doesnt help fix the bind
She went down to earth and gave it her charity
And said im sorry to all including her family

The girl behind the mask looked as she saw her mother
Clutching to the robe of her suicidal daughter
The girl had finally saw what she had done
So dont make the same mistake and dont grab the gun
(k.b)

my true inner self
secret person of the heart
~ heartland of my soul






Mark Toney © 2021

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Dear Mom,
Hey! How’re things?
So, LA is weird. It’s all sticks and stones and billion dollar homes. Last week on the Metro I forgot my headphones, but it all worked out because there was a homeless man who was naked from the waist down except for a pair of Spiderman underwear with the tag still attached who was singing “Sweet Caroline” at the top of his lungs.
Everyone here is someone important. They live the philosophy of Descartes like scripture.
I think therefore I am... exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping because my mind has taken up running, which means it’s acclimating to the culture here quicker than my body because everyone in this town ******’ loves running almost as much as they love vintage shoes and car horns.
It’s strange though, I can’t shake this feeling that I’ve lost something.
Anyway, I love you.

Dear Mom,
Thank you for the eyes.
Last afternoon a stranger told me they were beautiful, and on a day where every mirror seemed to be of the funhouse variety, it was a welcome compliment.
I’m sorry I haven’t called in a few weeks, please don’t think it’s because I don’t miss you.
It’s just, lately, I’ve been feeling a bit like a marionette whose had his strings clipped.
Slumped and crumpled.
Small.
Collapsed and sprawled cracked in some forgotten corner--the hollow knock of wood bouncing across the walls of this mezzanine dressed in finer things than me that have been fostered by
Father Time and his Mistress Stillness.
And I know how you worry.
You worry ‘til bones bruise and still your skeleton aches to shoulder my melancholy yourself, so I can’t bear to bridge this distance with crestfallen phone calls where the past year locks fully loaded on six-shooter lips--the way heels cling to cliffs edge--before finally, reluctantly, free falling; firing off each round.
Six words aimed with eyes closed as if it were up to God to decide where they’d hit:
“I wish I could come home...”
Then your silent, empty-cartridge, catacomb sigh would just teach this telephone how cavernously a mother’s heart aches for her children.


Dear Dad,
I know it goes without saying, but thank you for the check and the note attached to it.
It’s hard to describe how much home I find in the deft curves of your surgeon’s cursive.
I hope you’re doing well. Last time I saw you, you seemed a bit like a lit cigarette filter tip watching the singe approach.
Maybe it was just the embers of your eyes glazed over by one too many heavy handed nightcaps.
And this isn’t to say the Superman who stayed up late nights holding me through fits of anxiety has up and flown away, this is just to say you seem to be flickering.
This is just to say I hope you still laugh at bad movies with the thunderous bass of July fourth fireworks.
This is just to say I’ve been staying up late nights holding on to yesterday.

Dear Mom,
The care package was unnecessary.
I now have more Skittles than any one human should ever consider consuming in a lifetime. So thanks. I know I told you, at some point, years ago, that they were my favorite… but *******.
Really though, waking up to that box on my doorstep choked me up quicker than a swift kick to the nuts. You have a way of weaving through this heartland like a Middle-American interstate and I love you so much for that. It’s just next time, maybe try something that doesn’t have the nutritional value of flash-fried butter sticks.
But not too healthy. Maybe fruit leathers?
P.S. Keep the homemade fudge coming.

Dear Dad,
Forgive the handwriting of an earthquake.
My hands are shaking again like when I was young. I’ve been finding stillness, though, in between sips of five dollar coffee and midnight cigarette drags beneath and incandescent moon that seems to use breeze hands to play cat’s cradle with strings of smoke.
Life is fast here. It’s all gas pedal and touch-and-go breaks.
P.S. If you see mom, don’t mention the cigarettes.

Dear Mom,
I got your e-mail about smoking and the ensuing health issues it leads to. Graphic stuff. That was super informative and totally unprompted. Thanks for that.

Dear Dad,
...

Dear Mom,
Stop worrying so much, you’re making my bones ache.

Dear Dad,
In my dreams I am a lighthouse with an unfocused beam. I’m searching for something, I just don’t know what.
At least I’m sleeping right?

Dear Mom,
These days blur together with the fading speed of a half-life hardly lived to its fullest.
Was it different for you when you were my age? I shift between a drifting stick stuck in a current and desert stone.

Dear Dad,
In my dreams I’m a lighthouse.
There’s a fog horn distant.
I’m still searching for I don’t know what I’m searching for something and there’s a fog horn far off like it’s from someone elses dream but at least I’m sleeping.

Dear Mom,
Do you believe that streams take sticks where they need to be?

Dear Dad,
Have you dreamt of fog horns lately?
I am a lighthouse looking for a nameless something in fog so thick I should be choking.
But I’m not.
At my feet there are rocks and they’re jagged but I’m not anxious because they stay up late nights holding me.
And in the distance there’s a fog horn that seems to be saying “All is not lost.”

Dear Mom,
Do you think that desert stones are waiting for something?

Dear Dad,
In my dreams a lighthouse is built upon jagged rocks that are shaped like your hands. I’m searching for something and even though my lamplit electric torch eyes can’t touch the sky through this ******* fog, I keep them burning because I should be choking but I’m not, I’m finding stillness in the way breeze plays with smoke strings and far off there’s a fog horn distant promising “All is not lost.”

Dear Mom,
This town is all sticks and stones and broken home drifters.

Dear Dad,
All is not lost.

Watch Bush.
Watch him push,
Metropolitan moods
Farther towards
The Atlantic and Pacific.
What issue was the key?
Gay marriage to be specific.
Forget our foreign policy,
Although the future looks horrific.
Ask all our allied countries,
Our president’s terr(or)ific.

He’s watching our country’s back.
(A side note: Reasoning for attack;
Some big weapons in Iraq).
This war is justified,
Our government’s convinced of that.
But waging full-out war
On a country and all its people,
Where only terrorists act?

If my sail has gone downwind,
Please advise me to tack.
But I strongly believe,
Our reasoning’s that wack.
I wish our president had the nerve
To bring our soldiers back.

It was a brilliant diversionary tact,
And advisors guessed well on how
The United States would react.
Bring fear and resources to the forefront, while hiding the facts
And legislatures and voters have a worthwhile contract.

So while I’m sitting here, still trying to figure out
Why we can’t implement more help in Somalia or the Sudan
Our leader has emerged on the world’s stage again,
Yelling “Can I get encore, do you want more?”
And ethics continue to slide off track,
While our diplomatic virtue fades to black.

Bush Jr. won the election “fairly,”
It’s clear for all to see.
But it’s sad to watch how easily
Politicians, Fortune 500 companies, and lobbyists
Have learned to exploit our Democracy.
An adept political machine,
Our government has no trouble raising the green
For our defense budgets and campaign schemes.

And it seems we forgotten about
Rescuing underfunded education,
How our country hurts collectively as a nation.
Left most of New Orleans’ poor and down-trodden
To the heroic efforts of local police, the coastguard and firemen
(At least those who weren’t part of the 1300
Which the water levels reached higher than).
And it makes me wonder,
Like 7 years ago, on the 11th day,
In the ninth month of our calendar year:
Through the wake of another major
Catastrophe and time of tears,
Did we miss the lesson, again?

See, we’ve made it a routine
To apologize after the fact -
One overzealous scream,
And the media makes
A joke of a good candidate,
Sorry, Howard Dean.
John Kerry’s record,
“Too sparkling clean.”
But accusing ANY politician of flip flopping
On the world’s political matters,
I hardly call that keen.
“We” had many grounds
For initially invading Iraq,
But to this day, have any been gleaned?
Our President lost 90-9,
In Washington D.C.

The President Elect
For 365 more.
In fact 365,
365 times four.
And with a majority in senate,
A “mandate” (a.k.a. a wide open door).

Time to get some things changed.
Instead of patching up wounds,
Of countries estranged,
With all the ambiguity of the election,
And the issues that ranged,
One thing is certain -
The President reigns.
Under the heat of the world’s glare,
Our burning Bush remains.

Orchestrating music
Inside my ears
Italian cuisine
Inside my mouth
Panics, paranoia
Inside my head
The American dream
Filled with fireworks
And potholes
Covered by band aids
In God we trust
Police
Sitting and smoking
At the saloon
Being available
For nothing
Losing goodwill
Every second
Every moment
Laying around
As fat house cats
What flawless
Behavior
We all rent
A fake life
And pretend
We aren't
Crashing
Their cars
Into a concrete lady

The Dutch brought art, mud and dirt of the Kathmandu heartland,
With cigarette smoke clouding the air, and pizzas in the oven.
Not overcooked, no medium rare, slight rounded, man-made

The ambiance was now of Rembrandt and Van Gogh,
Yellow with the hint of light.
Perhaps coffee, perhaps tea.
And delight in a conversation of philosophy.
Maybe you'll pay, maybe me.

The open doors swallow in the air of the monsoon,
with the enigma of ever binding books who stuck to the wall
Like wall flowers, some folded papers like petals of an unbloomed bud.
They all had smells better inhaled with tobacco smoke.

The music played, and people dance within the security of their thoughts,
The shelter for their thoughts, the flaws of their speech.
Memories,pure and bright radiated from the lamps above the bar,
Lights which come to us only in fallen stars, but wishful thinking
is dangerous.
Hence forget it like Dutch forgot the wars.

Memories are made here, where the humidity is heavy from the perfume of heavy smiles, or folded chins and forheads from a chess game.
Not hidden, no worries, around the corner.
But yet again man made.

I'm leaving / my home
Without a word of goodbye
I'm sorry / if I hurt you
I've gotta find a new way of life

I'm sorry / if I'm dumber
Than my age says I should be
But I'm tired / of losing
To the way things should be

I promise / to remember
All you've given me
If you promise / to surrender
To the fact that I had to leave

Wherever I go, I'll keep you in my heart
If I'm a thousand miles away or down the road
Everyone needs a few brand new starts
Everyone needs some time alone

I'm riding / through the heartland
Waiting for peace to come
I'm hiding / in the mountains
Singing to the morning sun

I'm riding / through the valley
Breathing in mountain air
I'm smiling / I am happy
I feel like I belong somewhere

In this land my poet lays,
Beside me now and then,
Where feelings meet,
My prince is dashing,
Moving fast, but always slow,
Crunching crashing,
Such impact,
Love collides!

Poets place their work with pride,
Feelings evicted from deep inside,
In love's perfect alliteration,
Escape to play in pastures new,
To share with many,
Or share with few,
Dragons slain in land of pain,
Again,
My poet fills my heart,
Endears me with his writes,
He is a mighty poet,
A duo of darlings,
Continually fighting to eternally write!

Kisses from a tranquil pen,
Contort with viral virulence,
Show darkness's in it's true intents,
In bright lights' revelations,
My poet,
He kisses me in person,
Now and then,
My heart and my soul intact,
For now!
By ladylivvi1

© 2013 ladylivvi1 (All rights reserved)

Judy Judy Kansas cutie / it starts in the heartland / Tornado = social change through manipulated crisis / Toto the only free agent / Dorothy struck on her head by the closing window of virtual possibility / She realizes that hope'n'change have reached the prairie / Alice in Wonderland Hollywood / Kansas as futurist narrative / Star Wars pre-dated / It's a Wonderful Mythic Life / Miss Gulch as Henry Potter / Witchery in bitchery: Hillary 2016 / Scarecrow as Celtic bog-sacrifice victim / Tinman as ****** therapy client / Did that hurt? No - it felt wonderful ! / Bible-belt Pentecostal subtexts: "the anointing" / obsolete leonine monarchies / Louis Quatorze the Sun King /  enlightenment through concussion / the tyrant must be resisted from the heartland / populist progressives plot stealthily to justify their rule through the wizardry of science / the tyrant utilizes tech to manipulate the credulous / green state fascism / journey out of ontic inevitability into the futurist nightmare / eco-mammon bailouts / infantile mental midgets ruled by witch-tyrants = One World Munchkinland / Dorothy as redeemer-Messiah / Dorothy as Mary Poppins / America exports populist prophecy to the greater world / Glinda the Matriarch-Goddess / Glinda as transcendent Wisdom / the Anti-witch antidote / Patriarchy creates "special effects" subterfuge / flying monkeys: shock-troops of the witch / simian social justice warriors / Obama as Witch of West AND Wizard simultaneously / flying monkeys: brown-shirt armies of new multi-culti order / George W. Bush was the the witch the house ("Hope & Change') fell on / Over the Rainbow: somewhere beyond ****** identity grievance-mongering / There's no place like the Restoration of All Things

shirtless screaming through
the heartland and I used
to smoke cigarettes
too.

she never wanted
to stay: the youth
she had
left demanded it.
now, I'll wager
she's somewhere
in an apartment with
some dandy that
wears sweater vests
to Thanksgiving dinner.

maybe she thinks
about me and my little
twisted heart every
now and again:
like when she's away
from the sweater vest
on the toilet
behind a locked door,
"be right out, babe!"
or toting groceries
through a parking lot
to her car,
or signaling a
left turn before
changing her mind
and deciding to
go straight instead.

and
maybe I need to
stop thinking
about her
especially after
three years
incommunicado

but what can I say?
I've never slept on
a bed of nails
I couldn't
dream on.

fireworks sparkle
the darkened sky of my memory,
sparkling through my soul in a pleasant wave,
uncovering a walk in the jungle of my heartland

and a guava tree.

I’m in my kitchen, filling my nose
with the delicate scent of ripening guavas from Mexico,
palmed in the chalice of my hands,
feeling my way to that jungle walk with my family when I was three
or maybe two, in Hawai’i

and the guava tree.

as I bite through the fragile skin of the yellow globe,
the seeds, like BBs, take me further into my remembrance,
my family around me sharing
the excitement and joy I felt when I saw and climbed

the guava tree.

after we moved back to the Mainland
to a desert paradise I also loved,
each Spring I came down with what I called my Island Virus:
a deep yearning and homesickness
for my heartland

and the guava tree.


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

Somewhere deep in the skies of Montana
a lonely street corner flickers
casting coded light
upon the distant albino hillside

It was once a great lake
of snow and ice and melt and
unseen by life
It drained and died

and its beautiful lakebed sands
became the hillside
again

to tumble and fall
into valley and time
again

there we built an impermanent road
we pave and pave
maintain
with trucks and slabs of dirt and grain
roaming those Roman roads
again

Somewhere deep in that heartland
the strings that pumped the musculature
of a dying nation
slowly giving way to a violent attack
from within
oxidize and pool
into great tides
to one day see the coast

I am in California
but I see it clearly as a dream
where the great plains meet the mountain face
and the Cheyenne carved their heels into the dirt
for a bit
spirit
eroded into the winds

today the miners spit
at a coffee-town bar
into copper cans
licker than split
Owning the land that shakes
and shifts
redrawing god's lines
with a paper pad and a pen
for a bit

And the dresses the ladies wear shine
lacquered wood and the horses cry
and beside the interstate
the trucks steam and chuff
and their drivers gaze starry-eyed
onward, beyond into the night
beyond those flanking hillsides
to the flat ocean land sponged anew
that left the oil fields in Texas and the tar sands in
Athabasca
set ablaze in the fervor
of a death rattle
American heart
pumping to feed these hillsides
again

for tomorrow we begin.

This meadow once a graceful place
Pathways to untold peace
Narrow corridors into the heartland of tranquility
Weaving in, out, around trees
Like perfectly formed webs
That glisten with morning dew
Even as the sun sets through the branches
Cascading this meadow with darkness
New Moon blanketing the meadow
With the hope of new light
The voices begin to play
Lullaby whispers dancing on leaves
Shaking tree limbs to the eerie silence
The nonexistent breeze
Carrying the meadow into ballrooms of vampiric flames
Thirsty for the life each tree branch holds
Silent meadow voices
Truly are silent
When meadows burn to the sound
Of crackling horror-stricken leaves
Curling under the immense heat
Fossilized in ashes
Making this once tranquil meadow
An ashen wasteland for silent meadow voices
Refusing to even open their tongues
To welcome the morning sun
Bringing new light
To the horror of silent meadow voices...silenced

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.

The coffee cups are *****
But it’s the cleanest way
To drink whiskey here.

The barman lost half his right fingers
To a wood chipper in his early 20’s
And spent the rest of his adult life
Flipping the world off.

He got it down to a fine art
By the time I showed up.
He didn’t smile when I ordered my drink.
He didn’t smile at all.

The jukebox hasn’t changed
For two stagnant decades
And most everyone but the regulars
Are too scared to use it.

It’s the same rotation
Of Elvis,
Muddy Waters,
BB King,
John Coltrane,
And early Bruce Springsteen.

Not a woman in sight
But every song is about them
And we are all here
Because of them.

Certain patches of carpet
Have not seen a crack of light
Since the Berlin Wall fell.

Nothing changes here but the customers-
And that change is incremental at best.
The same filthy etchings over
The same filthy cubicle doors.

The same Cherokee Indian
Smoking a Cuban Cigar
In the heartland of America.

I can’t find myself here
But there is no feeling of loss.
There is no profundity in anything here.
Just squalor

And enjoying one’s squalor.
I think that is what it means
To be truly happy.

I must’ve had seven cups of coffee
the morning of your funeral

Put on some slacks
Button my shirt (my mother forgot the weather and wore a skirt)
I do my best with my hair
Try to open my eyes and keep them wide

The night before is no better
In jeans and pearl snaps,
I get in my car and drive through town
The town you were raised in
My mother as well
And I, half raised

My cell phone has been off for
close to three days, shut in a drawer
Probably harboring messages from four
people who decided recently they were in love with me
And I'm sorry because I'm only ******* them

No computer, no phone, only stereo and headphones
Gentle distraction
As sadness rapes me over and over

I hold the door leading to you
There are people I know and some I don’t
Floating through the pews like ghosts
I approach you in a wooden, cushioned bed
Centered at the front like a sacrifice
No one dares to linger too long beside
A final viewing before we give you up

Everyone talks, smiles, braves it all
In the heartland
Of the heartland

With my family’s hearts dripping from my
hands.

It's the following morning
The supposed final goodbye,
The day before Thanksgiving and I am only rage.
I appear in hate of whatever God pulled this punch
My father and I
sit on the couch drinking coffee, dark.
I let it fester on my tongue, bitter and harsh
This house is hurricane
I haven’t slept in days and days
My eyes, like bloodshot moons,
Wane

Loss is plague

I drive to the church
My brother in the backseat
Steeple looming, scowling
knowing it’s wreaked it’s revenge on me

It hasn’t hit him yet

We pull up in the procession, the second car
behind your carrier, grandmother
I walk Max in
His eyes wax as he sees my mother in tears

It’*****

Pulls me down by my coat
Ear to mouth
“Grandma’s in heaven, right?”
Tears well in his blues

“Yes, Max, she’s in heaven.”
I can’t bring myself to say anything different

We sit in the splintered pews, old news living through bad news
A hand reaches for an older man’s shoulder
from behind
Two arms draped around him
Mother and aunt
This church is hell
Eulogy, song, tears
Everything I expected and dreaded
I hug my grandfather

I drive my brother and a couple cousins
To the cemetery
It looks like rain is dawning
Gray skies in a gray world
Grave sites in graver eyes
A prayer starts, the fourth or fifth today
Giving me time to think
Roses are passed
Carnations are stacked
Everyone lingers, little ones jump in mud
Family and friends talk

The red rose thorn ****** me
and I bleed goodbye blood

Goodbye, blood
Goodbye, grandmother
Goodbye

Words, while being paths of study,
Can't lead to oneself, for the intellect
Can't lead, as life doesn't follow.  
The corporate structure's convolution's
Devolutionary direction differs.  Stray
Not from your heart path: you being who,
What, where, when, how, and sometimes
Why, forever asked, and unanswered.
Viva la Evolucion, viva la Green Party.

**** man, I wonder how a money salad with ranch tastes?
With the way we're faced
I see myself seeking shelter in the Great American Wastes
In the Heartland but I feel like I don't got no heart, man

So I just keep thinking though
Laugh at the freedom show
In the age of the digital rabbit
I'd rather break my habits, slow
So hold up now, listen close
There's a cold wind that blows
Over and over and over the world
So clear and awake and it smells like hope

But I'm living amongst the violent
Chaotic spirit energy of the silent
Tunnels of white and bladed nightlife
Drowning for lack of feeling alive
I want to feel the heat tonight
But there's no warmth in the morning
But I find joy in my cold Turkish Delight

Someone asked me if I ponder
The galaxy and how I fit in it
But I told them I lost my Samsung under
The bridge by the creek in a fit
Of ecstatic acid bliss
So I just let live and let
Live and let live.

What can I do with this bayonet?
Make a rose bush of it?
Poke it into the moon?
Shave my legs with its silver?
Spear a goldfish?
No. No.

It was made
in my dream
for you.
My eyes were closed.
I was curled fetally
and yet I held a bayonet
that was for the earth of your stomach.
The belly button singing its puzzle.
The intestines winding like alpine roads.
It was made to enter you
as you have entered me
and to cut the daylight into you
and let out your buried heartland,
to let out the spoon you have fed me with,
to let out the bird that said *******,
to carve him onto a sculpture until he is white
and I could put him on a shelf,
an object unthinking as a stone,
but with all the vibrations
of a crucifix.

Standing on my beached heartland,
a few hundred thousand bleached granules of sand
trickle through thick slits in my hourglass hands.

The dry-stream sands my fingers to periosteum as
my head walks the neural gallows,
last lines on the tip of the tongue.

He was a runaway circus animal,
the theme I hunted in vain.
He was my solar eclipse, my waning moon, the coastline;
he was a garden, a sculptor, an elaborate stone trellis;
he was frightened, he was in love, a philosopher without a cause;
he was Michelangelo, Camus, Akhmatova, Kant, Blake and Crane;
he’s the executioner, the brief reflection of a solitary grain
sliding down the boney hourglass
as the blindfold does the same.

The anatomy of my country,
I am learning to understand the rivers
I know they are the veins that flow to the heartland
This heart, lying somewhere in Nebraska
Where the land is wide and golden, it pumps in tune
The hands of New York or Los angeles,
The ones that have touched so much and love far too well,
They give and they take and give back again,
So much to hold far too much to feel,
These legs lying somewhere in florida or Arizona
I do not know if it is the tropics of the desert heat
But they know the way the world moves,
The head lies somewhere in north Dakota
Such a sound mind, for she knows what she wants,
Such shoulders of Seattle or Maine,
whispering to the rest of the body some cry for remembrance,
Way up there in the cold of december,
The inner thigh of Louisiana,
Such excitement and wonder,
Let me touch it for a little while welcomed me in,
The between of Texas, The ribs of Maryland or Virginia,
A stomach lies in Missiouri,
The lungs of Wyoming
All pumping themselves back to heartland
The rivers know their way,
The excess of my love has run off to the atlantic
Poured itself into the pacific,
I am caressing the carolinas,
The anatomy of my country.
Has taught me the love of the plains
and the wonder to touch the oceans,
She is everything, She is always,
And she is teaching me the difference

Magical silence of Midnight..
as we ponder moments of life.
Solemn  thoughts at tranquility..
Virtues guiding our pursuit..
Images of distant loves..blurr our waning thoughts..
Envisaged You through virtual reality
of thirty years or some more
so ago,
I haven't encroach Thy heart
to no one but You.
A rare bloom floret to my sight!
Beauty Ahah!,,I cant resist this thorn in my Rose Garden.
"And tempted by the charming fragrance of
the blooming gardener".- whom He divulged:
                "Purple bloom reflects a purple heart that expresses love unsurpassed,,,I am writing these words  with my crimson blood ,, to equal thy charm the glow of your love"
He recounted to me over.
Then I know I behold to keep it in my
cognizant jeweled mind, oh so dear.
With my long blondish brown hair
swaying softly cool but warm.
Truly though agitated by the
earthly abating absence-
of Your tangible touch.
Unsurpassed by my astral dream
with much ado!
Gladly remembering You,
in my fervent thoughts.
Thereby cherishing you
on times when things make sense
to me-
out of distress,
to madness so unlikely permeates.
When I am down in anguish, I couldn't weather!
                      "Let the beauty of the woven words ,,
                        guide Your day into fruitfulness, so deary,
                        "Let the rhythm and cadence gives You music in Your restlessness."
  Sir I said, ' I love You" withal affirms..
                       "Let the laughter of my jokes, '
                         lighten Your burden, ease Your yoke,
                       "Let the fire of fiery words be Your armor n silent sword!"
Woe to me as I heed to hearken and thirst for more!
                       "Let d spell of Your poignant smile,,
                         fills my cup instead of wine,,so that I may lie in deep slumber
                         as I gulp Your sweet nectar so divine!"
                         T'is lady  Rose ( scientific name liigaiea vellenoeva) is the best
                         of them all,,
                       I wanna pick her!'
He likewise and inadvertently  told thine.
Along came my sweet behold, I so to keep.
Love such a splendor, undeniably volatile,
in total intimacy desperately onto
conjures.
Yodeling and Yonder fire churning escapades,
To someday crossed our paths
should not perish, So afar!
I beseech thee, make me a swell great day!
Even though  fuming flowers and bees so abounds!
In a ROSE  minted heartland
truly endowed.
Thy thorn so stuck amidst for
You and me
For every storm to grasp its thrushes,
Be res-assured nifty and dandy
For you my daddy
to come Home to,
and hangout together.
That pokes and pukes
Lingered though day in day out,
colloquially.
From jive to logic.
From sane to insanity.
Only one soldered Thorn sojourns!