Chicagoetry: The Picture of Dorian Grey

By J.J. Tindall

The Picture of Dorian Grey

A dining jacket of fresh asphalt,
boulevard after boulevard
of sturdy, fragrant

boutonnieres, cocktail in hand,
Our Town as
Dorian Resplendent.

Petition El Jefe
with the guise of the Gallant.
Stash that ghastly

Ivan Albright variation
in the AIC
attic, fellas.

Hide the Ghoul,
fetid
of ignorance, avarice and

idiocy.
Silk the right roads, ensilken the
gashes

in that preening Technicolor (TM)
ruin. Nay: proffer Fine Young Dorian,
all

downtown and natty,
down to the large, Victorian
mirror-stand just behind

him there, stage left.
Imagine the swoon
Ivan Activist

lushly savored,
able to get his acid hands
on that

mirror-stand!
A
rapture

of devastation!
Say: petition
El Jefe

with Downtown
Dorian the Moneychanger,
relaxed, composed, flush

with success.
"I am myself Heaven
and Hell."

Hide the hideous
Mr. Hyde boogaloo
and vamp

a Jekyll-ian vamp
about what he's like when he's
sober.

You know,
shoulders broad as
boulders,

big as
boulders,
whatever?

This
kind of
thing.

Get a still
from the MGM version
(1945) if you have to

and vamp (don't
write anything down and
don't

talk about it on the phone!
And there are cameras
everywhere!).

Do it now.
Do it now.
For yet doth Dorian

decay.
Meanwhile I'll be
The Invisible

Man doing
whatever
it takes backstage

to get the Fix
put
in.

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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:

* NEW SONG at the Tindall MySpace page

* Fiction: A Hole To China

* Critical biography at e-poets.net

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