Chicagoetry: Fresh Hell

Fresh Hell

Harried voices hurtle
Down my back walkway
Like dice tumbling

From a Yahtzee cup.
Between the bricks
Of this century-old multi-unit

Fortress

And the wood fence along the garden
Is a corridor of echoes.
Night itself makes a third wall

Off which the voices bounce,

Fervent conversations scored
Abstractly by radiators,
Clonking pipes and

Hissing valves undergirding

Ominous narratives.
Like a carillon of broken bells,
Or like dialogue

In a Robert Altman movie:
You have to concentrate
Hard on specific lines, and

You miss stuff.
Often, you find
You want to miss stuff.

Often, what you hear
Is old hell: scorned lovers, spurned
Suitors, scammed marks,

Improbable revenge plots.

And, of course, longing.
Not just for love but specifically
Fresh love, new love,

Surprise love.
Whatever love they may have
Is no longer

Enough.
Old heaven isn't
Enough.The demands

Are ever
For fresh heaven.
Dots on a die:

Words, phrases, ejaculations
That continue bounding
Down the dark corridor.

Life on a grid: concave alleys,
Convex avenues, bike lanes, phone lines,
Long trains, short ramps,

A singular acoustics.
Sound is channeled like rain
Along wood, steel,

Asphalt and concrete,

In crescendos and
Diminuendos, waves
Along a beach

Of granite.
Lord: the talk
Is tense, there is tension

In the atmosphere, every atom of it,

Longing for a lucky roll,
Straight sixes, "Yahtzee!"
Ding! Ding! Ding!

Longing to banish
The last bad run,
The latest pain

Lingering, yearning
For some corrupt god's favor,
For just one goddam

Lucky break,
Like overhearing
Someone new say

They love you!

Fat chance: odds are
Fresh hell
Is all that truly blunts

Any old hell,
That latest pain-wrought bell, plastic
Tongue battering

The side of a cheap
Brown paper cup, no note,
No tone, just a brittle clonk.

No one new
Just said
They love you.

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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

* The Viral Video: The Match Game Dance

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