The Cicerone in Cicero
(For A.R.)
J. Quinn Brisben
The cicerone srtolls up Cicero Avenue,
Stopes for the red light at Cermak Road,
Observes chaotic shards where once stood
Western Electric's Hawthorn wroks,
Points skward at a vanished tower:
Longer than a lot of lifetimes
Wires plugged in, boxes werre lifted,
Synapses proliferated, news
Of billions of works and days
Hummed through boards assembled here;
Elton Mayo elegantly proved,
When the color of boxes changed
Or the light or stacking style,
Jobs went better and faster;
Human beings functioned like themselves
When the job was worth looking at,
worth the attention of someone
With necktie, notebook and stopwatch
Who validated a task worth doing;
Few choose to remember this.
Power demands the rule of fear.
A few doors down on Cermak
In a building gutted long ago
Capone lay prone beneath a fusillade
Rising up to die another day;
Ghosts of clip joints shrivel in daylight;
These bodegas once served dumplings
And advertized Dick Butkus portions
At George Halas prices, a joke we need
To footnote for the young.
Memories of rocks and sometimes bullets
Used by those with little on those with less;
A gritty town whose best poems
Were boxes stacked and wires attached.
Maybe a mall next, identical to hundreds,
Maybe herds grazing on a mound
Of some interest to antiquaries.
Amid the confusion of tongues
The cicerone points
To the memory of a tower.
