Chicago, 1959

Chicago, 1959 by Glen Brown

Sometimes I wish I could have lived
someone else’s poem,
perhaps go back to Chicago to ride
the Ravenswood ‘L’ through landscapes
of dis-integrated streets with John Dickson,
or go to school in New York with Len Roberts
and watch Dorothy Blake
draw another long line of phlegm
and ooze it into the open bottle
on her wooden school desk.
 
Maybe I could sing along in silence
while riding to Smithville Methodist church
with Stephen Dunn from New Jersey
and pump the vibrato’s thin blade
and stir the molecules of sound
with Michael Collier in Phoenix, Arizona,
or live in Williamsport, Pennsylvania
and play a game of sandlot baseball
in an empty lot, ringed by elms and fir
and honeysuckle with Gregory Djanikian.
 
But this is the poem I lived a long time ago
in a place where we played ringolevio in gangways,
where alley rats were our only fear
lurking in dark corners of apartment buildings
while we played on past nine o’clock,
and lovers embraced in dark passageways
outside doors that remained unlocked
throughout the night.
 
It was a time when little boys in Davy Crockett hats
imagined they defended the Alamo,
and little girls skated along treeless sidewalks
while we played fast pitch
against a dimly lit humming factory wall
far beneath six thousand city stars
without ozone, kidnapping, or terrorists’ alerts.
 
It was a place where teen-age gals,
wrapped in poodle skirts, bobby socks
and Angora sweaters, slow danced with guys
with Brylcreem-slicked hair
who snapped their fingers
to I Only Have Eyes for You
while doo-whopping around
Chevy convertibles with fuzzy dice
and Bobby loves Sharon
air brushed on the door panels.
 
It was the first time in forty years
since the White Sox won the pennant
and played in the World Series.
And for eight days Chicago forgot
America was at the helm of the world
with Dwight D. Eisenhower,
that rock ‘n’ roll was just four years old,
and Chryslers and Cadillacs
sported wings for taillights.
 
For one week we didn’t care
about Gidget and Little Joe,
and two Russian monkeys hurling
through space over Illinois, New York,
New Jersey, Arizona, and Pennsylvania,
and the rest of the forty-five states
while Dinah Shore launched
good-night kisses to us all
under the September Soviet moon.