As fall folds summer into
the bottom drawer
and pulls the winter
sweater from the back closet,
I gaze once again at the
wonder of Chicago
draping the colours of
autumn across her brawny shoulders
before turning her back
to shelter from winter’s icy breath,
sharp and cruel with the
arctic cold of the Canadian tundra.
Bare branches will
scratch the sky
till the winds shift and
spring dresses the elms
with lush, green jackets
and the city
slides into sandals and
shorts to wade
in the blue lake water
which will bathe the sands
and kiss the feet of the
skyscraper skyline
to remind us that before
the brick and steel city,
there was water and
earth,
sun and moon, life and
death,
and the eternal mystery
of the changing seasons.
In
this dark American night,
there
are too many poets
who
are blind and unaware
they
stand at the altar of truth,
dressed
in the vestments of art.
Lost
in the tangled swamp of narcissism,
they
settle for the simple, easy comfort
of
worn clichés and infantile emotion.
But
a great poem goes beyond
the
sloppy sentimentality
of
the human heart
and
refuses to wallow in self-pity and tears.
Real
poems are forged from thought,
powered
by intelligence,
and
honed on the whetstone of pain.
The
poet’s tongue must strike the heart
with
piercing assaults that stir the blood
and
remove the cataracts of conventional thinking
which
blind so many to the jaundiced world
that
festers beyond the door.
Writing
poems is a sacred mission
and
the poet needs to say that the days of
turn
on, tune in and drop out are over,
that
using religious freedom as an excuse
to
commit wrongs in the name of Jesus
is
fear dressed in the cloak of faith,
and
that barbarians with hard, hungry
eyes
are coming to take away our
Facebook,
our smart phones and our
smug,
puerile sense of entitlement.
Yes,
the gravy days are over,
the
high life is a punctured balloon
and
our children are in trouble.
That’s
the truth.
That’s
the face of the future
and
it’s time for poets to deliver
the
sermon no one wants to hear.
St. Francis and the Animals
St.
Francis suffered a six pack of
symptoms—
depression,
malnutrition, constipation,
megalomania,
hallucinations, and despair—
and
the animals were merely a
soft distraction and a moment
of tactile connection
until
he returned to the dark
isolation
of his cave
where
his sins swirled in the
dark,
luminous ghosts,
singing
the songs of his failures
and
he ground his teeth to
stop
their shivering chatter
in
the chill dampness of his remorse
which
whipped his back till dawn
and
left him feeling sanctified
Weatherman
Jim
was a Weatherman, an underground radical
shot
in the foot by a Chicago cop
during
the Days of Rage.
Now
he lives in sunny San Diego
and
sings madrigals to the California climate
that
caresses his Midwestern flesh
with
a soft, citric kiss.
But
the sun hasn’t been able to burn
through
the clouds of ganja smoke
that
braid his hair with yesterday’s fantasies
and
float him across a Third World playground
where
he’s still the American Ché,
rescuing
natives from imperialistic exploitation
and
the poverty of disease.
When
the pipe goes out and Tijuana coughs
its
rancid breath in his face,
he
yawns and remotes across the cable,
searching
for programs to lace the sneakers
of
his preconceptions with facts
that
won’t squeeze his feet
into
the wingtips of reality.
Turned
on and tuned in,
he
waits patiently
for
the comatose Sara Jane
to
wake from her fourteen hours
of
beauty sleep,
so
she can join him in the sauna
where
the water’s always warm
and
the coyotes howl in the arroyo.
Home
Snow
blankets our street and dusk blots the light
as
my family lingers with coffee and cake,
the
grandchildren yawning, ready for bed.
I
step outside to clear a safe path to their parked cars.
Bundled
in wool I clear the sidewalk,
my
fingers stiff as my breath fogs over
my
head, the shovel scraping beneath the stars,
the
moon glinting in the dark, December night.
I
pause to rest, coated with glistening flakes,
and
regard my cold, snow-muted home, the bay
window
glowing warm with laughing faces displayed
around
the table which has always nourished them.
My
heart bursts with love and fatherly pride
as
I resume my work, sheltering these people,
who
fill my life with golden satisfaction,
while
the indifferent storm swirls overhead.
Chuck Kramer - Chuck Kramer’s poetry and fiction
have appeared online and in print, most recently The Raven’s Perch and The Good
Men Project. Memoir in Chicago Quarterly Review (a Notable Essay in forthcoming
Best American Essays 2023), Sobotka, Evening Street Review. Journalism in
Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, Reader, Windy City Times and Gay Chicago Magazine.
Fine work, Charles, my friend. We are struggling to wrest free of the grasp of evil, hiding in the cloak of Christianity.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteVery talented!
ReplyDeleteI loved the first poem, Chuck. Congratulations!
ReplyDelete