Chicagoetry: Big Fat 49 To Strawberry Town

Big Fat 49 to Strawberry Town
For Nello Ferrara (1919-2012), Chicago Candy Giant

I spilled out into the black breeze
like a leopard in jeopardy.

Electric light ahead on Hirsch
beckoned a bejangled, fat
49er, the southbound CTA Western 49.
I could just about see it shine.
49 to the Blue Line,
big blue lime.

My objective was Strawberrytown.
There's a candy factory there

and the black breeze
smells often of strawberries.
I wanted to catch that bus.

Things were lookin' good
but then I got a little cute.
This is a hazard,
like a blizzard of buzzards.

I melted into my calloused paws
but I sprung too late. I blew the call.
O dammit all!

My fresh, white whale--
white flesh for a water leopard--
blew right past me, man.

It was remarkable strategic failure.

The night hawk/horizontal sheath
of the grid, tinged

with the diesel of Western Avenue
enveloped me completely.
My eyes were sculpted into shivs.

But then I rallied.

I imagined a beacon of bells
and then indeed did bells beckon.
The shadows simmered with imagined hells
then I pretended I heard a deacon of bells.

Again: it was a remarkable strategic failure
but the objective remained

Strawberryland!

Due to the candy factory there,
with its monumental neon sign
like a Sphinx in the dusk

the black breeze smells
often of strawberries.

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

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More Tindall:

* Chicagoetry: The Book

* Ready To Rock: The Music

* Kindled Tindall: The Novel

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