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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue of cc&d (v244) (the July / August 2013 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Art is not Meant to be Touched cc&d 2013 collection book		get the 374 page July - Dec. 2013 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Chicago “L”

Josh Gaines

The skyscraper scaffolding
Sky writing high-rise lives in the sky
The Michigan morning
Rolling in dense as dreams
Over Lakeshore Drive
From the lake
Around the legs of the city
Covering the city... damp
Cheek bones, glasses, on polished stone sweat
The lake is a graveyard
And some days the city
And the lake, are one.

The little brown boys
White socked
And tip capped and kicking
Soccer in the gate yard,
Where the ashes of burnt downs used to be
Lawn bearded like a 15 year old now
In exhaust coated grass.

The toll bridges
Old troll bridges
Grass growing through
The untrod concrete,
And tolling
Bells of clock towers
Or road crossings
Or draw bridges
Or funerals.
Car horn trumpeting,
Trumpets too
In the flash mob
To the pan handler
Playing to the rush-hour-few
Who aren’t rushing

Windows reflect windows
And sparks speeding
Barking, clacking raised tracks and voices.
Hip hop and purse drop
As she grabs down
To stop the dress
Swirling around her in the rush of wind
The dress was black
With white dots
And when it moved
In this July wave of heat
It almost looked like falling snow.
Deals and no deals
Raw deals
And the way she wept next to me
Into her gone silent cell
Surrounded and abandoned
By strangers.
Up above
The sun or moon,
The few stars that poke through
The night of lit night lights
Of the towers, head lights
The city
Living city
Windy because it is breathing city
Inhaling the world,
Exhaling the ghosts
Sun beat, cold beat, red-blue city
Heart beat city.
Slow beat eternal city.
Arterially traveling its pathways
The trains sparking across synaptic gaps,
Track-lines growing, gnawing deep
And the beat of the lake,
The clawing waves
Who look to the city
Who know the meaning of patience
Who wait for the fall of:

Brick walls close as an eyelash
Barios, bars, 24/7’s
Blinking lit with the sidewalk smokers
And the score on the wall,
And everything baseball
And everything,
And evry-thing
And-ev-ry-thing
And-ev-ry-thing
And-ev-ry-thing

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