I received a welcome gift in my inbox recently from the Chicago poet, John Hospodka. Titled "South Side Trilogy", it is a fascinating multi-media collection of immaculately wrought free verse accompanied by audio and illustrations, mostly in pastel. Not so much a verse-novel as a poetic snapshot of life in Hardscrabble, the legendary slum of Chicago, the work somehow manages to exude a wistful air of nostalgia while bringing the day-to-day life of contemporary Chicago to the foreground, as though you didn't just rub shoulders with ghosts in the windy city, but walked right into them.
The Night They Tore Old Comiskey Down
Middle-aged men in a sagged circle
of unplanned stillness outside a funeral
parlor: one visualizes the deceased’s use
for a nicknamed slang, the other four weigh
temptations affected by the nostalgia playing
a heady deaf tongue to their collective grievance.
Two elderly ladies share a cigarette and gossip
spiritedly about a lesson about something
other than a headlong retreat into the hunched
idealism that declares one must never trust
a fellow who tucks in his shirt on the weekends.
Within the parlor a new widow scans
her only child’s altar boy eyes, but she can
-not yet locate any semblance of biography.
A spleen-driven spasm redirects the foul
trail of a cop’s demystified secret from his spine
to his colon: “I’ve gotten to the least of me!”
His partner, troubled by this overdue reaction,
half-mouths: “Relax, that scum’s ghost is going
to turn out to be the best friend you’ve ever had.”
Last week’s church bulletin comes to a respite
upon the tar-pimpled sidewalk that red-carpets
an unnamed Hardscrabble saloon. An untried
front page from the Chicago Tribune tumble-
weeds audibly atop the bulletin, pauses against
the slightly glass-speckled breeze, clutches
the bulletin’s unbiased ink, steals away for
the unresponsive gutter at Fibs and Teeth St.
A college dropout struts by the saloon, peeks in
through the smoke-mirrored window, spots
an unspoken-of relative: You’ll see, one day
I’ll be an historian.
of unplanned stillness outside a funeral
parlor: one visualizes the deceased’s use
for a nicknamed slang, the other four weigh
temptations affected by the nostalgia playing
a heady deaf tongue to their collective grievance.
Two elderly ladies share a cigarette and gossip
spiritedly about a lesson about something
other than a headlong retreat into the hunched
idealism that declares one must never trust
a fellow who tucks in his shirt on the weekends.
Within the parlor a new widow scans
her only child’s altar boy eyes, but she can
-not yet locate any semblance of biography.
A spleen-driven spasm redirects the foul
trail of a cop’s demystified secret from his spine
to his colon: “I’ve gotten to the least of me!”
His partner, troubled by this overdue reaction,
half-mouths: “Relax, that scum’s ghost is going
to turn out to be the best friend you’ve ever had.”
Last week’s church bulletin comes to a respite
upon the tar-pimpled sidewalk that red-carpets
an unnamed Hardscrabble saloon. An untried
front page from the Chicago Tribune tumble-
weeds audibly atop the bulletin, pauses against
the slightly glass-speckled breeze, clutches
the bulletin’s unbiased ink, steals away for
the unresponsive gutter at Fibs and Teeth St.
A college dropout struts by the saloon, peeks in
through the smoke-mirrored window, spots
an unspoken-of relative: You’ll see, one day
I’ll be an historian.
According to the publicity, the "South Side Trilogy" can be obtained in traditional hard copy as well as accessed online. Just click on the post heading for details.
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