Chicagoetry: Old Main

Old Main

I will always love you.
In my soul, Old Main, you are
As a pyramid: holy.

Monumentally strange

And eternally beautiful,
In any guise. Like a Frankenstein
Of good, old-fashioned government

Boodle, like a Frankenstein's monster
Of good, old-fashioned, Mid-western
Government boodle,

Pieced together with obsessive will,
Not all parts matching up
But some sure force of life within.

You've seen some
Raggedy-ass days but still

From the river
You are majestic in the dusk.
A sphinx of the realm,

Brilliant at dusk.
You have a highway in your belly,
A railroad in your loins

And a river
At your back.

Shadows slice the moonlight
Over the river down there.
Don't forget the river

And that I will always love you.

A golden-haired angel watches over you,
Ogling as one would
An antique abbey or a ghost-adorned

Urn, you with the ghosts
Of men & gods: Spiegel,
Ward, Roebuck.

My mind came

From the glens
Of the near west, down the Old 110--
The Chicago-Kansas City Expressway--

Past the Magikist lips,
The original Sears Tower, The old Stadium,
Through your gut

To the Bowman and Spearman
And Buckingham Fountain.

Once across the river,
Of course, you're in Atomic Giza,
Lakefront Luxor.

I don't care
What they say about you
Downtown.

Like a sphinx
Of the realm
From dusk

To dusk:

First you, then
The sea. It was always
This way.

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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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