INCLINE

Hanging over what is 

now a pastured

pile of highway rubble—busted- 

up chalkdusty con-

crete slabs and 

pieces jammed out at all angles—a horse-

powered pack of unreal

cranes dangling masonry

is not just fixing-

on building 

a steep offramp to some-

where—it's furious-

ly demolishing 

the tall fictions

that hereto-

fore existed

bliss-

fully down 

in the 

thin and big 

pages of an idyll-

ic blueprint somewhere.

Meanwhile—on the other

side of the 

chaos—caucused horses 

grounded in clover swish calm 

and wonder—

what's any of this

dust got to do with

wild oats alfalfa grass straw hay or heck maybe 

even dangling— 

carrots for extra motivation.

THE HOUSE HUSBAND

No expensive-
sounding
arabesques, I'm
afraid—and no
fancy tricks; these slight

righteous hands were just
never made to be
too hot for folding-
up or cold-calling.

They've
just got good
fingers for firm plums—

for holding stiff
picks and pens and things—

and for clenching
thick
books to swat (to strains
of the 1812
Overture in boxer
shorts, per-
haps?) any lazy

fat Autumn houseflies I
might find—but only
for my

jumpy
dog's druthers, of course.

GOOD OL' FASHION

Two-
way

interaction!—
like,

sure,
middle-

kid,
there'll be

room at the top,
no question!—

soon?
as

the bottom's done
collapsin'.

PANG

In the thin beery alley
just after
dusk—pulls its mauve-
turning-indigo-

colored covers over cool
old Chicago—
a man's murky outline
stains the driverside

window of his white conversion
van as he idles there
cramming—a paper-
wrapped burger with one hand.

With a slithering hot shiver, I
realize, walking past, that I've
all-together stopped—
listening to my headphones.

SORRY SANDBURG

All 

the fog

across town

is dead now—its little

cat feet

got spooked

and

scampered—

back 

into the fusty back-

wards 

Chicago River this 

feisty morning,

where it drowned—

completely

un-

considered—

shrouded by the thick-

ly modern 

sound of all those 

daffy clang-

ing 

jack-

hammers ringing through downtown!

GREAT DEPRESSION

In the red after-

noon 

silence occupying another 

retreating rough-

and-

tumble workday—you wonder 

which

would help you

fill-

up faster—an encountered busker

out on your 

office corner, singing Life's 

a Bowl

of Cherries loudly—or 

maybe

simply—

staying-

put and quietly 

chewing—just three or 

four chilled chunks of gooey

nectarine in your impoverished

privacy?

MORE THAN A FEELING

How—

Super Sounds

of the 70s 

sluice down 

through

perforated  

tin cans above—

muddling

the future-

white 

contours of

this nonplussed—

BP gas station pavilion.

ANDANTE

Pleasant-

ly rude 

and

rumpled this morning—and 

feeling

it deep

down in each 

of

battalions 

of

billions 

of

stiff little capillaries—my two desiccated  

smart-

aleck lips 

are—somehow 

quick 

to pull slow drags

from 

a luke-

warm green travel 

mug 

of paste-

colored 

coffee and cream and 

cinnamon—and sure, miss, I'm ready—

in a 

minute, 

that is—to look 

over those 

files you were all asking-

after last

week or whenever—

PATIENCE AFTER GALILEO

Spinning slowly into yellow

autumn—above, faint traces 

of clean high stratus 

clouds and criss-

crossing contrails are

sustained across 

the spacious and wind-

glazed sky of glass— 

freshly making crystal 

clear the writing 

that stains it—one ought never 

to die 

for Truth.  Because it really 

doesn't need any extra room.

AUTUMN LANDSCAPE WITH RED LINE CONSTRUCTION ONGOING

Men—

in vests 

and glinting hard-

hats 

are tightly 

Monday

morning-

caucused

across

the bulldozed 

CTA tracks—

leaning hard (on 

skinny shovel 

handles) 

and talking rather 

breathlessly— 

fast 

about 

the passing-

game 

last night.

FOURTH HERMENEUTIC CIRCLE

A high-
end-looking garbage
man in red

headphones—dribbling
over-
flowing black bins

past me
in the soggy alley—unwittingly
rejecting

my over-
courteous good morning—

ALL WAYS

The morning star—was really
Venus;

the evening
one—will be the same.

Imagination seems
to point us to what's possible

but maybe not—
always?

METONYMY FOR RUSH HOUR

Admit it! late-
nineties white
Crown
Vic—cruising not
terribly quick-
ly in the right
hand lane
of the harried express-

way—you kind
of get a little
bit of a
kick—
from the fact that
everyone! out
here sort
of—
thinks you're a cop.

MAKROKOSMOS

Under certain 

given 

atmospheric- 

pressured conditions, I freely 

submit—that 

the 

candybright 

banner

brimming with mid-

western

wind 

at 

the 

top 

of that 

great silver pole—plays-

out 

like a

dynamite! boffo! commercial—

for 

The U. S. of A.

Though, 

admitted-

ly—my subsequent 

thought 

on the subject

is usually

just—

the hunch that some 

truly great

show must be getting interrupted.

RED LETTER EDITION

Okay, I give 

up—this New 

Covenant's too

long—lists all clever-

ly,

arranged 

and

—redacted. 

I just want 

to be 

emphatically—right

where I ought to

be—blasting Vivaldi's bright

Autumn iii endlessly

banging my head

off the butt

of some joke—stoking

my appetite 

through dumb force

of sheer exercise—

and after-

words, 

hell!—

I swear I could 

eat a whole 

plague of locusts for breakfast—just

do me one 

favor—stop 

talking already! 

and quick! pass 

me over that—

wild honeycomb.

SCHERZO

Funny these 

rusty 

days, 

so many—

dark figures 

of 

birds just 

resting—

snug on the 

lean 

and tilted east-

facing

woodgrey 

poles 

of

old 

above-

ground 

power lines so—nonchalantly

mocking—

the west's 

best go at 

ful-

some, serious 

September 

—wind.

GOG V. MAGOG

Late-September 

daisies

are a good deal

smaller—and more

innocuous—

than those smartly 

farmers-

marketed June 

ones you 

presumably remember;

and a heck of a lot 

harder—

to notice anyway 

behind all those  

obnoxious—mums 

everyone's 

probably been talking 

your ear off about.

XXL

Sub-

urban cowboy—plainly 

wary 

of the uniformed 

guard on-patrol

in the lobby—I wonder,

idly—which chain 

store your

denim's from?

TRANSUBSTANTIAL

Hungry-

to- 

learn—eyes

become 

ears become 

noses become mouths until—nothing 

out here 

is not identified—

and nothing 

is left

uninterpreted. Like the old

saying used 

to go—meaning!

meaning! every-

where!—not a bit

that's fit

to eat

for breakfast!—now

we know—

those flowers out there split-

ing

rocks are poison.

COY NOTE FROM HIGH SCHOOL REVISITED

Kate—will you go

to the barn dance 

with me? I don't care

when; I don't know—where

it is—just

circle one—yes—or maybe no;

either 

way, don't

tell your friends—if they really 

want

to know, anyway, the only

thing I truly care

about of course is—

discourse surrounding us.

MEDLEY

From trees—

cheep-

ing birds

 

flap 

heralding bright 

full 

gusts of 

new autumnal 

wind—

the kind that 

rustle all their dusty

branches—displacing these 

tussled grass-

fulls—of embarrassed 

would-

be apple hopefuls that 

now look—

so 

pretty 

dis-

appointed.

DOG EAR

Faint and 

Pavlovian—tingling

bells mean 

white carts of easy-

enough-to-

catch ice cream—

ONTOLOGIST

I guess 

in the 

end—What I'll 

Be

is a list—he 

was born,

then he

worked

for a while, then 

he died (perhaps addend—in a 

personal style—

sincere 

but not 

serious—his words

they were neat and 

distinct—and a lot

of them touched 

off some slight-

ly unique-

ly benign 

public consequence).

But the matter 

of—Who 

I'll Be seems

a bit messier—even 

as I suppose

that it's

only three—

of these

neat letters—TBD.

ECHELONS

The Department 

of Motor Vehicles 

was just an awful

big collection of rectangles

stuffed—

inside of 

bigger rectangles 

endlessly-

so, or so 

it was

thought—'til the thought

so it went—got all 

kinds of square-

rooted,

then 

diced, 

then 

just hollowed- 

out and

replaced with something cheaper but similarly nice 

called—

Administration.

SQUEAKY

This is not to say 

that I'm 

complaining—about 

such 

ardent odd 

September heat.

This—is just 

me sort

of saying—

that all I want

to do

is sit—close

by a wheezy 

brown dog in a rusty

swing on a 

porch that's 

been painted up—haint 

blue 

or 

better—yet 

maybe painted mint-

green chocolate-

chip ice cream—

TICKY-TACKY

The smug

bird crowing 

hard and proud-

ly 

from 

inside the grubby 

nest he made

on top

of the roof

of the snug

coach house

that I'm 

afraid—

to put a nail in

has made

me pin

the 

following down—

a poet who's

unknowing—

is always

more at-home

than one

who's just—unknown.

A LESS-INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Record-breaking

temperatures 
are

no-news 
at all—
to

the clever old 
oily-slick

duck 
who's bobbing—so coolly 

up

and down

over 

there in your 
septic-

brown 
backyard water feature.

WABI-SABI

Effortless-

ness 

comes hot

and 

ready—whenever

pizza and two

liters—of 

Coke is dinner.

(THE PAST IN THE) PRESENT

Solemn and

morning-

dark workplace 

linoleum—still sticky 

from the dribbled

juice of an old 

perfect peach 

that you gave me—mustering

hunger—for awkward

and half-

remembered—

home tap-dance duets.

SATORI STORY

Walking with such 

a funny 

purpose and sweating 

through 

my best stuff 

out 

in the balmy 

wooded suburban 

street—I hear (what

else but) shrieking fucking

treefrogs!—

un-

dulating 

hundreds 

multiplied upon

the hundreds in-

exhaustibly 

screaming bloody

murder over-

head and over 

again with-

out much 

fuss over mis-

under-

standings, and I can't—

help but

—then 

there—suddenly! clutch 

the under-

lying 

Truth they're humming—Life

as

such—

is sometimes thus—just exhausting.

UNION

Slow precision—

behooves the dust-

sweaty 

pink Russian 

tuckpointer stooped 

over chewing—

messy-ish 

bread and egg 

salad on lunchbreak.

AUGURS

The floppy flock 

of teen boys loafing 

lean and

pale and shaggy-

headed—and trying 

its best to come-off

illicit—while hopelessly 

packed in baggy maroon 

polos inhaled by yawning 

khakis—still manages

to look—rather 

unbelievably 

cool—splayed-

out against the ancient

catholic school without AC.

KNEE PLAY

I swear I wouldn't
even bother

asking a blind man
waiting—to cross

the street
with me at North
and Damen

such an uninteresting
question as—whether

he thinks
of lights
as red
or if
there's maybe

something better—I'd so much
rather

hear what it's like—

to smell
the Starbucks on the corner.