Chicago - A message from the station manager

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.”


Now: simple errands rife with risk,
Commutes devolving
Into carnage. “Dear God:
I’m just trying
To get to work!”
Now: you walk,
Scanning the ground for ice
And then a diamond-hard chunk
Breaks off an adjacent tree
Or soffit, splatting inches away.
Might hear a warning crackle first but
Might not. White bombs
Rain, crystal ordnance teem,
Some ice falling in sheets wide as a car.
Now: the sky, quite literally,
Is falling.
Nearly broke my ass slipping
On the back porch stairs taking
The garbage out to the alley
Due to a lazy choice of tread-less shoe
And black ice under the grey snow.
Glad it happened early
This year so I’ll be smarter,
Sharper, fucking meaner through the siege.
Now: the neighborhood, in
Contemporary parlance,
Is “weaponized;”
But black ice won’t break me,
It’ll be the making of me.
Every sense sharpened, every
Step measured, every breath
Deep. I’ll listen
For crackle
In my sleep.

J.J. Tindall is the Beachwood’s poet-in-residence. He welcomes your comments. Chicagoetry is an exclusive Beachwood collection-in-progress.

More Tindall:
* Chicagoetry: The Book
* Ready To Rock: The Music
* The Viral Video: The Match Game Dance

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Posted on December 3, 2018