By J.J. Tindall
Black Jeans in White Tel Aviv
I wore black jeans
In White Tel Aviv
Before teleporting to
Ponder the dusk of Tuscany.
You could dam the Mississippi
With the jeans I can no longer wear.
Enough about today!
Listening to dancers,
Ahead on rent,
Sustaining the loving lie,
The one that spares the beloved.
As if, during a recession, you stage a World’s Fair
And are desperate
For begonias. Who is starving
While you “need” begonias?
I thought I “needed” black jeans
For White Tel Aviv.
I wanted my fat ass
To look good as can be.
I needed black jeans in White Tel Aviv
Like Olmstead needed begonias.
Life is a knife
That slices through calf muscle
Laming the dancers
You hear so clearly when you close your gilded eyes.
Life is a knife that cuts your black jeans
Into shorts, that cuts the bloom off
The gilded begonias,
That spoils the dusk
Of Tuscany that you worked a year’s worth
Of overtime to witness.
You could dam the Mississippi
With the ruined sunsets at Tuscany.
It is life,
Not God. Not God,
But the knife.
And if you can actually hear dancing,
You are God.
Not exclusive to Tel Aviv
Or Tuscany or the Mississippi.
Sunset in Winfield
Has much to recommend it.
That romanticizing Tuscany shit
Is all in the mind
Which is as close to Winfield
As Tuscany.
The American mind,
That is.
–
J.J. Tindall is the Beachwood’s poet-in-residence. He welcomes your comments. Chicagoetry is an exclusive Beachwood collection-in-progress.
–
More Tindall:
* Chicagoetry: The Book
* Ready To Rock: The Music
* Kindled Tindall: The Novel
* The Viral Video: The Match Game Dance
Posted on September 25, 2017