Chicago -
By J.J. Tindall
Darling Buds
“This is what I mean.”
Said the wind.
“I am music, I am motion,
I carry
The gods.
I enswirl you
With fresh light, ensnare you
In the dust of the darling buds
Of May
(Which seem to come so suddenly,
Like the new sunrise, now off kilter.
You look away a few days
And everything changes).
“This is what I am,”
Said the mind.
“Trained by art
Posted on May 4, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Happy
Two weeks ago
I was happy
For about 10 minutes!
It was really cool and
Now the insomniac sky
Glows with light pollution
Reflecting off the low, wet
Posted on April 19, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Bite
I eat fear every day. Fat with it.
I bike through cold rain
With worn down brakes, worried
For wipeouts, for drivers plowing
Through yellow arrows across Harlem Avenue,
Stray dogs, service truck blind spots, potholes,
Posted on April 5, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Death in Chicago
God died and
I started to lie:
Little white ones, at first,
And then the compunction escalated.
Like: it wasn’t God but
My mother
Who died.
Posted on March 26, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Mother
My mother is dead, my girlfriend
Is crying and I’m ogling
The morning weather,
Some major market blues
Posted on February 19, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Flight of the Iguana
“They stalk more silently,/And crouch on the limbs of trees,/And their descent/Upon the bright backs of their prey/May take years/In a sovereign floating of joy.” – James Dickey, “The Heaven of Animals”
I didn’t know iguanas
Lived in trees and I didn’t know
They fall when they freeze.
I did not know iguanas
Lived in climates which froze
Nor where they’d doze.
Why would trees
In Florida freeze?
Why would January thunder
Posted on January 29, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Sick
I still have a crush on you, still
comparing thee
to a summer’s day:
more lovely, longer lease,
this kind of thing.
Posted on January 16, 2018
By J.J. Tindall
Metal Machine Music
Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re trying to be so quiet? – Bob Dylan, “Visions of Johanna”
The heat pipes do more than just cough:
they hiss and spew, slur and sing.
Sometimes comes garbled dialogue
in a voice like Captain Beefheart
or his hero Howlin’ Wolf;
that could be a projection of mind
or perhaps the pipes are actually
channeling radio waves.
Posted on December 31, 2017
By J.J. Tindall
Winter Mice
The winter mice are reappearing,
As if they’ve been there all along, invisible,
Walking through walls,
Fatalistically determined like lemmings
Or salmon
To attain heaven.
Posted on December 18, 2017
By J.J. Tindall
New Fucking Frying Pan
Nobody tells me
Who I am.
Problematic in relationships
(Been a few years
Since the end of my last
Long-term commitment).
I want a fried egg?
I go to a diner
And order one or
I fry it myself.
Posted on December 4, 2017
