Chicagoetry: Son Of St. Francis Of My Ass

Son of St. Francis of My Ass

I'm just trying to have a good time.
Hurt is Hell. Let's have a bell!
TONG! TONG!

And a crow.
My Hell is a deep Christian
well in a raw field

just beyond
the edge of the last
suburb.

A raggedy-ass crow,
nothing noble, no Narcissus
of wire. A red crow

in a Hell of black crows.
This kind of thing. The bell
rings

big: Tong.
The heirs of this Christian shell
scuttle all raggedy-ass

through a cornfield of bones.
The bones shake with shells
a raggedy-ass samba

of scuttles to which
the black crows boogie as
the red crow stays stock still.

And this is the Fugue
of my only St. Francis, my lonely
St. Francis, my homely,

groanly, ownly
Bra Francis: Patron Saint of My Ass.
Hero of my heart!

Goin' for broke
(and when you go for broke
you often arrive)!

Keeper of the faith!
I am the deal, I am
the field

and the infinite symphony
arising from it. Crows, bones and bells
are but atoms of me

in moats of time.

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St. Francis Of My Ass

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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:

* Music: MySpace page

* Fiction: A Hole To China

* Critical biography at e-poets.net

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