By J.J. Tindall

LITTLE WING
with thanks to the Chicago Honey Co-op (Tweet @Honeycoop)
A breeze full of angels,
a garden of mouthings,
the buzz of little wings
amid a squall of tears.
Like something
out of an Encyclopedia Britannica
classroom movie circa 1950 –
monaural, grey scale, slow mo.
Like something
out of a dream –
man-made bee hives
like little cathedrals
in the brush
behind Anderson-Shumaker,
the metal works along the old
CSX rail line, just west
of the Lotus Tunnel
at Central Avenue.

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Posted on July 21, 2014

By J.J. Tindall

EDDIE AT BONNAROO
Eddie cleanses
His soul with
The youth he brings
And the youth he finds.
He’s at Bonnaroo
(The youth he is)
With his daughter’s crew
And I marvel.

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Posted on June 18, 2014

By J.J. Tindall

BLUE LINE BLUES
The train sang
In a whirlwind of tones,
A thousand tongues
Of steel and stone,
A thousand tons
Of brick and bone.
Steel wheels and hot rails
Rocked a rhythm section,
Momentum made maracas
Of the swaying hull
And I lost myself in the music
Of the dynamo hum.

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Posted on May 20, 2014

By J.J. Tindall

GOTHAM
A city of dreams must exist in the night
in a dark glass dome under an inland sea.
We strain to sink
into our warm, soft tombs
to escape, to dream,
to heal the day’s fresh wounds.

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Posted on April 28, 2014

By J.J. Tindall

FINGERPRINTS OF A DAYDREAM
I passed the ghosts
Of last year’s tulips
Turning back south
At the hospital power plant,
Walking an errand for supplies –
For survival –
Through the soft, fresh snow.

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Posted on March 26, 2014

By J.J. Tindall

Rainbow Bridge
“I’ve never seen an ugly bridge.” – Marilyn Monroe
I’m fixing to bike my rainbow,
a pedestrian bridge across the Eisenhower Expressway,
a rainbow of concrete, asphalt and steel.
A man-made miracle – my favorite kind! –

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Posted on February 24, 2014

By J.J. Tindall

A Mind of Winter
It was written, once,
in America, that
“one must have a mind
of winter…
and have been cold
a long time…
not to think

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Posted on January 13, 2014

By J.J. Tindall

FANG
So: in this dream,
a long, yellow cobra
marked with green diamonds
ensnared me
as I rode my bike toward home.
His flat head wrapped
around my right handlebar grip
and I feared it’s tail end

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Posted on December 17, 2013

By J.J. Tindall

CREATURE FEATURE
“Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness–for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee–and their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still.”
–Edgar Allan Poe, “Spirits of the Dead.”
Festoon the black clouds
And low jets above
With the sway–
The wanton sway!–
Of premier spotlights!

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Posted on October 26, 2013

By J.J. Tindall

Perhaps It’s Time to Leave Damascus, Leave the Mask Behind
I. Lawrence at Damascus (Ennui)
Picture Lawrence
on a ridge
above Damascus,
September, 1918.
Sharif en regalia, masked
as a pink-fleshed djinn,

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Posted on September 30, 2013