By J.J. Tindall

Black Ghost
If a flamingo, be of steel.
Strike a pose in mid-pirouette.
I see myself in Calder’s Flamingo,
bright red steel striving to dance
and my parents are the Federal Buildings,
serene monoliths of dignity, repose
in black steel and glass.
So I am the carefree child at their stolid feet
dancing in both reverence and defiance.
I think my dad wanted me to be Sears Tower.
I think my mom just wants me to be happy.
I don’t think either imagined a flamingo,
even one of strong, stubborn steel.

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Posted on August 3, 2010

Poems by J.J. Tindall
Selected from The Beachwood Reporter
*
You have before you the greatest collection of American poetry published in the new millennium. By a Chicago author. For a Chicago website. If you like that sort of thing.
But then, maybe, truly, it is the best-in-class. After all, who else can claim Ode to a Hoover Bagless Cyclonic Action Quik-Broom with On-Board Tools (“Quiet machine, soft machine, I machine”) in the same breath as Five Boys On a Golf Course (“We who remained drove a van to Arlington, VA, for the military funeral, smoking joints and telling stories. The Navy bore pall for us all.”)?

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Posted on July 26, 2010

By J.J. Tindall

Forgive Yourself (Better Man Than Me)
All graffiti is physical.
Graffiti requires a vague understanding
of physics.
I think of it as Rogue
Physics, like knowing how to use
a double-album
and a driver’s license
to clean weed.
I sweep blood

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Posted on June 14, 2010

By J.J. Tindall

Exile on North Ave.
Every day I dream
of a different life.
Like: a city in a ship.
Not a ship
in a bottle, but a city
in a ship, a city

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Posted on May 17, 2010

By J.J. Tindall

Rain of Light Clear as Christ
I remain stuck in my labyrinth,
odd corners of Hell.
My feelings defy my aspirations.
I can breathe and I can sweat but I cannot
smile.
I’ve got three hundred dollars and I’m instinctively looking
toward the Caribbean.
Surely!

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Posted on April 19, 2010

By J.J. Tindall

Confession to the Future
I strove for wealth and sorely failed,
I did not save a single whale.
I did not raise my children well,
I told my friends to go to hell.
I did not know my neighbor’s name,
I juried love a callow game.
I scorched the earth to fight for fame,
I stole a march on any shame.

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Posted on March 23, 2010

By J.J. Tindall

Carl Sandburg and Marilyn Monroe
New sculptures in light
have emerged from the archives.
Portraits of American gods, and gods they were
and perhaps remain.
People they were, too, first, visiting
in a New York apartment.

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Posted on March 15, 2010

By J.J. Tindall

St. Catherine of My Cock
I will never understand.
This is the beginning, and
the end.
I will never understand
what it means to be
a woman.

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Posted on February 16, 2010

Son of St. Francis of My Ass
I’m just trying to have a good time.
Hurt is Hell. Let’s have a bell!
TONG! TONG!
And a crow.
My Hell is a deep Christian
well in a raw field
just beyond
the edge of the last
suburb.

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Posted on February 12, 2010

By J.J. Tindall

St. Francis of My Ass
I don’t mean to tick anybody off.
I pray to my own St. Francis.
St. Francis of My Ass, Clyde!
Nobody but me slams
my door. This keeps me free.
I am not a Socialist!
I am not a bedbug!
I do not weep blood and then cease.
Like an eagle, I increase!

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Posted on February 4, 2010