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Chicagoetry: A Lake Michigan Of The Mind

By J.J. Tindall

A Lake Michigan Of The Mind
“Way down, below the ocean, where I wanna be, she may be.” – “Atlantis,” Donovan
Unmoored,
Unmanned
But for your formless soul
Chugs the glass submarine
Swirling in circles to the east,
To the depths of sleep

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Posted on May 15, 2019

Chicagoetry: Two Blues Lyrics

By J.J. Tindall

Two Blues Lyrics
1.
More Than the Blues
I hold my heart in front of my face
Like it’s a skull I’m talking to.
I see my sadness take up space
Like it’s something brand new.
If this is what is right,
Why’s it feel so wrong?!
My heart’s a house of fever
Showing movies all night long.

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Posted on May 7, 2019

Chicagoetry: The Black Cat

By J.J. Tindall

The Black Cat
Every morning when I venture
Onto the grid as winter finally wanes,
My mind is a recalcitrant predator: hyper-aware,
Vigilant, cunning, poised. By necessity
A black cat with jade-green eyes.
In the center of each, black pupils
Which reflect any color image the cat
Contemplates, first displaying the primary colors
Before they coalesce into secondaries:
Red and yellow into orange, red and blue
Into violet. You have to be vigilant.
You can only see these colors reflected

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Posted on April 7, 2019

Chicagoetry: Like A Rembrandt In Candlelight

By J.J. Tindall

Like A Rembrandt In Candlelight
She moves
Like a Rembrandt
In candlelight:
There’s a glimmer,
A flicker, that is signature.
The others lack dimension,
Somehow, in comparison,
Like the difference
Between the Great Plains
And the Kettle Moraine.

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Posted on March 4, 2019

Chicagoetry | Courtyard Still Life: Cardinal And Cricket

By J.J. Tindall

Courtyard Still Life: Cardinal and Cricket
The chirp of a courtyard cricket
Came in through the bathroom window.
It was high noon in summer.
I was startled. I heard eternity.
Cricket song, I thought,
Was a strictly midnight phenomenon.
One expects siren shriek, train whoosh, tire screech,
Car alarms, garbage trucks, arguments, gunfire.
Apartment courtyard acoustics prevail:

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Posted on February 18, 2019

Chicagoetry: Treadwell At The DuSable Museum

By J.J. Tindall

Treadwell at the DuSable Museum
In the early ’90s
We got stoned
Out of our living gourds –
Me, G.F. Fox and Seamus
(Representing West Town,
Ravenswood & De Paul) –
And made a drive south to
The DuSable Museum
Of African American History.

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Posted on February 4, 2019

Chicagoetry: The Umpteenth Ward

By J.J. Tindall

The Umpteenth Ward
“Forget It, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
Every January morning here
The light is all vertical,
Shooting low from a late rising sun,
A seething head poking out of its lair,
Nervous like a fugitive.

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Posted on January 21, 2019

Chicagoetry: Black Ice Blues

By J.J. Tindall

Black Ice Blues
Now: black ice lurks
Like a mugger, so time
To be aware
As a burglar.
Now: The whole wide world
Is booby-trapped,
“Frozen objects plummeting toward
The top of your skull
May be larger than they appear.”

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Posted on December 3, 2018

Chicagoetry: I Am Iron Man

By J.J. Tindall

I Am Iron Man
For the Hideout, in memory of the Beachwood Inn
I will cry blood
If we lose our magic hideout!
So let us coalesce
Into an Iron Hero:
Flesh of corrugated metal
Thick as a thousand

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Posted on November 15, 2018

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