Chicago -
By J.J. Tindall
West Town Blues
Rose of Sharon thrived in the odd patch of hard dirt
Amid the asphalt, concrete and steel when I lived in West Town.
Defiant rose, city rose, hard rose. “Jaybird, when Joey the Clown
Ran the neighborhood, women could walk home from work
Posted on October 15, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
The Single Greatest Cab Ride in the History of the Free World
When you work there
On busy summer weekends,
The best thing
About Navy Pier
Is leaving it.
Posted on September 17, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
The Hate Song of Walt Price-Friedham
What price freedom?
If God shan’t prevail
Perhaps democracy itself
Has failed, like a patient
Upon a table etherized.
How shall I presume?
How shall I wear my hair
To declare my attitude
About the high American noon?
Posted on September 5, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Ten Angels Too Many
I am not
A man of faith
But I pray
Like Hell.
Sauganash himself was like:
“I play de fiddle
Like de Devil
And I run a hotel
Like Hell.”
Posted on August 28, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Down around Peotone grows
a tree of Heaven
and within it rests a bird
named Tomorrow.
Posted on July 31, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Wells at Dearborn
1. Alexander at Kandahar
Kandahar was founded
By Alexander the Great
During his questionable Afghan campaign,
As one of a series of fortresses established
To protect him and his armies
As he pursued the Persian Satrap Bessus.
At each of these fortresses,
Alexander left behind hundreds
Or thousands of Macedonian and Greek soldiers
As well as logistics and supply troops, builders,
Artisans, tillers, every type of worker needed
To create a real settlement.
Today, at Kandahar Air Field (KAF):
U.S. Army, Marines, Navy,
Air Force. British, Canadians, Belgians, Italians.
Mirage jets from France.
Private contractors to clean toilets, run chow halls,
Build gyms, train bomb-sniffing dogs, service the phones.
A TGI Fridays, a Nathan’s, a KFC,
An ice cream stand, pizza by the slice . . .
Posted on July 15, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
A Garland of Moons
I conjured a garland
Of moons, like a garland
Of garlic
To resist the
Vampyric gales.
Fat, full moons
Which dissolve
Into the great, black lake.
All because I insist
On existing.
And I exist
to resist.
Posted on July 2, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
The Mind is a Leopard
The mind is a leopard
in repose, elongated on a branch
of an acacia tree, lithe tail dangling
in the humid breeze, swatting
at giant mosquitoes and bloated bottle flies.
She scans the horizon for enemy and prey,
listening, inhaling, sensing energies
that men often portray as minor gods.
Posted on June 25, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Bison at the Atom Smasher
I am the soft target here,
I don’t quite measure up
To the atom smasher.
Mind you: to me, a particle accelerator
Is an atom smasher and
I’m not even sure
Why I’m here at all.
I know I’m not alone in this.
Posted on June 1, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
King Love
They squared off
Revolver to revolver,
Maybe six feet apart –
Let’s call it four –
A beat cop
And a Latin King
(A child), in a standoff
On the sidewalk in front
Of my second-story flat
After sirens,
Squealing tires and shrieks
Of “KING LOVE!!!”
Posted on May 11, 2018
