"peoria" poems
THE BALLOONS hang on wires in the Marigold Gardens.
They spot their yellow and gold, they juggle their blue and red, they float their faces on the face of the sky.
Balloon face eaters sit by hundreds reading the eat cards, asking, "What shall we eat?"-and the waiters, "Have you ordered?" they are sixty ballon faces sifting white over the tuxedoes.
Poets, lawyers, ad men, mason contractors, smartalecks discussing "educated ********* here they put ***** into their balloon faces.
Here sit the heavy balloon face women lifting crimson lobsters into their crimson faces, lobsters out of Sargossa sea bottoms.
Here sits a man cross-examining a woman, "Where were you last night? What do you do with all your money? Who's buying your shoes now, anyhow?"
So they sit eating whitefish, two balloon faces swept on God's night wind.
And all the time the balloon spots on the wires, a little mile of festoons, they play their own silence play of film yellow and film gold, bubble blue and bubble red.
The wind crosses the town, the wind from the west side comes to the banks of marigolds boxed in the Marigold Gardens.
Night moths fly and fix their feet in the leaves and eat and are seen by the eaters.
The jazz outfit sweats and the drums and the saxophones reach for the ears of the eaters.
The chorus brought from Broadway works at the fun and the slouch of their shoulders, the kick of their ankles, reach for the eyes of the eaters.
These girls from Kokomo and Peoria, these hungry girls, since they are paid-for, let us look on and listen, let us get their number.
Why do I go again to the balloons on the wires, something for nothing, kin women of the half-moon, dream women?
And the half-moon swinging on the wind crossing the town-these two, the half-moon and the wind-this will be about all, this will be about all.
Eaters, go to it; your mazuma pays for it all; it's a knockout, a classy knockout-and payday always comes.
The moths in the marigolds will do for me, the half-moon, the wishing wind and the little mile of balloon spots on wires-this will be about all, this will be about all.
5.5k
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and **** and hand
and ******* holy!
Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is
holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an
angel!
The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is
holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is
holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy
Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas-
sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering
beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the *****
of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop
apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana
hipsters peace & junk & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy
the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the
mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the
middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell-
ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &
Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the
clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy
the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the
locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina-
tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the
abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!
bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent
kindness of the soul!
Berkeley 1955
4.3k
Mrs. Gabrielle Giovannitti comes along Peoria Street
every morning at nine o'clock
With kindling wood piled on top of her head, her eyes
looking straight ahead to find the way for her old feet.
Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti, whose
husband was killed in a tunnel explosion through
the negligence of a fellow-servant,
Works ten hours a day, sometimes twelve, picking onions
for Jasper on the Bowmanville road.
She takes a street car at half-past five in the morning,
Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti does,
And gets back from Jasper's with cash for her day's
work, between nine and ten o'clock at night.
Last week she got eight cents a box, Mrs. Pietro
Giovannitti, picking onions for Jasper,
But this week Jasper dropped the pay to six cents a
box because so many women and girls were answering
the ads in the Daily News.
Jasper belongs to an Episcopal church in Ravenswood
and on certain Sundays
He enjoys chanting the Nicene creed with his daughters
on each side of him joining their voices with his.
If the preacher repeats old sermons of a Sunday, Jasper's
mind wanders to his 700-acre farm and how he
can make it produce more efficiently
And sometimes he speculates on whether he could word
an ad in the Daily News so it would bring more
women and girls out to his farm and reduce operating
costs.
Mrs. Pietro Giovannitti is far from desperate about life;
her joy is in a child she knows will arrive to her in
three months.
And now while these are the pictures for today there are
other pictures of the Giovannitti people I could give
you for to-morrow,
And how some of them go to the county agent on winter
mornings with their baskets for beans and cornmeal
and molasses.
I listen to fellows saying here's good stuff for a novel or
it might be worked up into a good play.
I say there's no dramatist living can put old Mrs.
Gabrielle Giovannitti into a play with that kindling
wood piled on top of her head coming along Peoria
Street nine o'clock in the morning.
2.9k
***** charley
was the name of our high
school mascot
back in the early 1930's
we was a bunch of german kids
we loved adolph ******
--
after the war
i became a used-car dealer
in peoria
--
my wife died
my kids went to college
--
the grand children are
"out there"
----somewhere
Oct 19, 2010
Oct 19, 2010 at 1:19 PM UTC
he slammed his cup on the counter
not to get anyone’s attention
though his cup was empty
I couldn’t stop staring at his eyes
of course they were bloodshot
and of course he stank of nicotine
and of truth that he said could not be found
in the bottom of that coffee cup or bottle of gin
though he ****** up both like…
hell, I can’t compare it to anything
and he would think a simile was a waste of words
he told me of a lover he once had, Elisa
with hair so long she sat on it
and a thirst as ravenous as his
which led her to an alley in South Chicago
where the ***** or the H put her to sleep
for good, and how he buried her in Peoria
in a hard freeze, beside her brother
who got killed in Phu Bai, by “friendly fire”
but Bukowski laughed through his tears
when he heard that **** “friendly fire”
and he filled his glass again,
with Bourbon I guess--I wasn’t at Elisa’s
numb mother’s house that day
and when he lost another ****** lover
to a drunk driver, he didn’t say anything about irony
just said, **** it hurts to be close
and he didn’t trust this happiness ****
because it didn’t last, but pain, hell,
you can count on that ******* and if he leaves,
you can make some up on your own…
the waitress filled our cups to the top
so there was no space for the cream
I sipped slowly to make room
he took a swig that had to scald his tongue
but I could not tell, for he was already on the death
of lover number three, sitting there with me
waiting for him to stop the foul flow of truth
Sep 5, 2013
Sep 5, 2013 at 9:14 PM UTC
It has been years
Since I slept
On a park bench
On a playground slide
In a ***** hallway
With a broken window
But I see me in him
Strange haircut
Face tats
Slightly *****
Talking to a stranger
And crying
I walk by
Afraid to interrupt
But in the store
I plan out how I will
Help
Exiting excited
I find he is gone
I drop my car
At the mechanic’s shop
Across from Walmart
And walking away
Almost stumble upon
A nearly slumbering form
I mumble some
Pleasantries
Pass him a ten
And let him be
It rains that night
But I don’t think
About him at all
Next day the car is fix
I head home
And see him walking
I open my car door
To give him a ride to the store
One open bottle of cider alcohol
Out of a six pack
I have to stop myself
On the verge of judging
But who am I
He accepts my ride
Putting the seat back
To fit him and his backpack
And blue tarp
I drop him at the front spot
I sit my care safely in
The parking lot
Then come back
Offer him a phone call
And sit and wait
And sit and chat
He says that no one
Has ever done that
He tells me that
People in town
Have been nice
And now he has a ride
Up to Peoria
I give him another five
And forget about him
Till now
Jul 10, 2016
Jul 10, 2016 at 7:39 PM UTC
48 degrees of chilly September morning air and a Camel Turkish Silver cigarette fill my lungs; ear-buds placed respectively between each lobe chiming the soundtrack from “Little Women”. As I walk down one of the busiest streets of downtown Madison, the journey seems hushed. A couple cars speed by Gorham and State, and I’m assuming it’s ‘take out $%!# and throw it away day’, noticing the garbage pick-up trucks drive along. Funny how, you'd never guess how many footsteps could crowd these enlarged sidewalks and street when the popular main course of Madison awakens. Feels like Christmas in the movies, when looking in store windows at things I’ll never get around nor remember to buy. And for once, I second guess all my thoughts of wanting to leave this town and forget all the memories it holds; for once, in a great while, I again want to call this place my hometown. Though truly, my home is roughly 3 and a 1/2 hours south of here in dear old Peoria, IL. Madison has always welcomed me and showed me things a city nearly its size, could never quite replicate; and just when I feel, I don’t belong here anymore, she pulls me back in on mornings when I couldn’t sleep all night and calls to me, saying, "let’s take a walk, and I’ll show you what you've been missing." She has a way of doing that, as you all may know. For she taught me how to dream bigger, think broader, and dare to create a new. My dear Madison, WI; frozen tundra and summer love of the north, how could I forget you?!
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 8:38 PM UTC