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the sun shines  on clark street’s budding trees and on the gravestones 

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My old boss would shout to me hey go get a couple  you know two three sandwiches from barri’s then he’d toss me his keys a recreational softball league champion underhand pitch honed out on lakefront diamonds out in these summers that are so  thick with humidity one might as well be living in a bowl of onion soup against cops and comedians facing plumbers and firefighters bartenders and electricians out on their one day off and it would sting a little but after taking everyones order i’d scream off in joe’s truck saturday afternoon chicago in lincoln park traffic down clark street when the grass is so green you can taste it when the sky is so blue it screams to dip your hand into it when the girls finally put on the dress they’d been dying to premiere singing along to whatever do wop cd joe had on full blast apparently and i’d be GETTING PAID FOR IT

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Things on my desk

a blue notebook with a single golden edge, filled with my days. a dusty blue baseball cap with a flat brim and a white yeti embroidered on it. a blue ballpoint pen almost empy of blue ink.  a blue see thru earplugs case, two orange plugs tethered to each other by blue plastic leash. a black knife with a broad leaf like blade with a silver edge. a black wallet that has  bad mother fucker embroidered on it in white. a black fountain pen filled with black ink. a black notebook with green edges cluttered with words in blue ink. a silver nail trimmer, which is how i cut my nails now instead of with a razor blade. a silver multi tool, folded up like a mantis claw, just next to the black knife, just next to  a silver watch with a black face and blue numbers. The blue seconds hand flicks away time without a sound to be heard. a white piece of paper, blue lines across the width and one red line running down the length. at the very top in black ink the first line reads My Dearest

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smoke jaguar plucked from a garden first dawn irrigated in strife fire is his shield flowers dismantled on the mountain two legged sky become humming birds shield jaguar iridescent as blood in the sunlight

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Ode to a dead rat

Ah rattus urbana!  You died as you lived, crawling through filthy alleys  and sneaking around back stairs. i can’t say if you were a good rat smartly sniffing out from your hideout, memorizing the dumpsters with the best morsels; or a bad rat, beholden to reckless street crossings, constantly skirting cats’ paws for the thrill, leisurely strolling instead of scampering. but judging from your size,  barley bigger than a fat mouse, maybe not a grand success in the real rat race. I’m sure you gave it a good try out on the streets and in between walls, climbing up pipes and fire escapes, listening to secrets, lies, and sighs.  How many quarter size holes did you cram your jointed rib cage through? I bet your last meal was your last meal. Bleeding internally, dizzy, and far from home, panicking as the dawn spread rosy fingers into the alley and in between still bare branches. Did the sudden dozen type of bird calls  perk up your pink ears tinged ears? When i found you, as I snuck in through the back door, your deft paws had gone still, tail stretched out in an exclamation point, and nose no longer twitched. A little later I scooped you up in the oversized outside only dust pan. i strolled across the parking lot, rolled you into the empty dumpster, a small sound, eclipsed by college kids laughter, a siren in the distance, a car horn, a jet overhead, the hissing of tires, the bark of a dog,  and the ceaseless bird songs.

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The skeletal remains

show evidence of  cuts to the sternum and dislocated ribs suggest the victims’ chest were cut open and pulled apart to facilitate the removal of the 

heart

killed with consistent efficient cuts  across the sternum  a lack of hesitant (”false start”) cuts indicate they were made by one or more trained

hands

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a red dawn scraping ice off the windshield while the wind  howls

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listening to miles davis while the radiator hisses and spits like an angry cat spring time chicago blues creeping in through the window/frame distorted by chicago weather i sharpen a knife and scrawl lines in a notebook that’s filled with scrawled lines that bleed  through to the other side of the page rendering everything unreadable

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POEM I WROTE AFTER ALMOST GETTING HIT BY A CAR AS CROSSING DIVERSEY AVENUE WHILE LISTENING TO THE LATEST PIG DESTROYER ALBUM

Part 1: I mentally yell at the driver of the blue ford FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCKER

Part 2: wherein i reflect on what just happened and what i’m listening to huh that would’ve been fucking appropiate

Part 3: after finally writing this down it’s cool i’m fine it’s cool i’m fine it’s cool

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the last cigar i smoked

standing in the drizzling rain outside big star lounge i clenched a wood tip black and mild in my teeth angled to run parallel with the flat brim of my black cap i turned into a century old door way and strike a match i pulled from drawer a pulled out a box i pulled out black leather jacket i pulled in a breath and the flame pulled in and in a few seconds smoke plumed out my mouth like the mist rising from the river  would a few months later during those mean winter nights but then it was only a couple of weeks til halloween so i wasn’t too worried about the cold seeping into my bones not as worried as new chicagoans who eyed me warily and i nodding in recognition that said hey you too are walking the same street i’m walking the same street nelson algren used to walk when this doorway was half as old i’m sure nelson smoke cigarettes and not a black and mild bought to qualify for the credit card miminum at a corner store but i’m sure he’d recognize the same neon wilderness 

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I missed a day so to make up for i’m going to cheat. Here’s five haiku/micropoems/whatever that i’ve held on to. The file name is actually “a junk drawer of haikus”, but rest assured that unless i say otherwise, the ones you read here are fresh. crow lands on fresh snow piled on the fire escape

You see the best things walking through alleys --- floating in a puddle alongside an empty beer can cherry blossoms

On Fullerton ave, just west of Lincoln there’s a house with a cherry blossom tree in the front yard, the house is adjacent to Depaul college

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wobbling in the breeze an orange deck umbrella the hum of ACs

This was at one of my jobs. One time I had to install around 200 window AC units. Of course there were lots of days where it would’ve just been nicer to keep the windows open.

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enshrouded in a chain link fence a prairie

A lot of time, when they knock down buildings, the lot remains undisturbed for months, sometimes years. Out of the rubble rise these incredibly lush plants and hearty grasses, and it always reminds me that the whole city used to look like this at one point. 

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the moon snagged on skeletal tree limbs a weathered plastic bag

You see the best stuff just walking around

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Depsite spending many hours at Marie’s Golden Cue, up on Montrose ave, I never became as good as pool as my friends did. I don’t remember many of the pool games, but I do relish the times I spent hanging out with my friends. While my peers where at robotics club, or at the newspaper, we’d be at the pool hall. We couldn’t get into bars then, so it was a refuge where we were free to indulge in our vices. I recently heard that it had recently closed, and despite not having been there in a few years I still felt a bit of melancholy. The city changes, but stays the same, just like a person.

the dusky light of marie’s golden cue the smell of chalk

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morning air carries the sound of a news chopper a dragonfly 

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my alarm clock today was vicente fernandez the smell of cut grass

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the ukranians’ cigarette smoke wafting towards tree buds

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Dear that guy who fell over on his bike and i drove by J who i told i would help movie but i was too hungover A who i said i would always be there but now i haven’t any idea of where you are T who i said that i was too busy making a pie to get hammered with and go to karaoke E who i told i’d be there the next day but was too hungover E whose phone number i lost and failed to keep of track of on the web I who gave me jobs but i stopped being cool E who loved me but i was blinded by my idiciocy and longing that old lady i might have knocked down when i slipped through a revolving door R who looked me in the eye and told me not to let him drink but ended up drunk anyway who i did shots with S who i wouldn’t kiss D who i never talk to O for being a terrible wingman and not keeping my shit together F who i continually argue with over everything B for all the times i missed band practice C for leaving you hanging that nye we first met  my mom and dad being a terrible son my brother and sister for being a terrible brother all the little kids i know for being a bad influence all of my coworkers throughout the years cause i despise work and avoid it as much as possible most of my managers who are mostly just working schlubs and gotta put up with my antics and speeches and puns everyone who i’ve stolen from, well the ones that didn’t have it coming, cause some of you did and fuck you everyone who’s had to put put with my snoring and night talking A who deserves way better friends everyone who has actually needed some change a little bit while i walked by fixated on some horizon point, one can’t even see the horizon in this city really J who somehow is still my friend all the girls i wouldn’t dance with thinking i was too cool to dance all the bands i’ve heckled, no wait that one i take back, you fucking suck but at least you’re doing it, who am i but just some sucker hating that kid i bought a beer for at a show and who ended up getting kicked out and missing that one band they really wanted to see H who i saw that one day we were both ditching class and instead of teaming up left you to wander around the city by yourself R who i thought would outlive us all J who i left alone with her kids and still pull her husband to go to metal shows A who i think is fun but never hang out with everyone who knows me and says hello but i’m a jerk and can never remember people those girls i met last night who i bought shots of malort for my lyft driver a few weeks ago when i puked in the car anyone i chose not to pick up in mosh pit, i have failed you all in some way or another and maybe i don’t deserve your forgiveness and for a few of you i can never have it because i hurt you too bad or  i have completely lost touch with you or are not among this world of hurt anymore and yeah it’s kinda selfish but i want to say i’m sorry and i am trying to be better and i miss you and i appreciate you being there/having there and putting up with me and i hope everything turns out okay with you because you deserve and some of you i could write extinsive apologies to but i don’t know enough words to tell you love b

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a siren yowling kids laughing in the alley the scent of rain