jim - j.j. jameson poetry excerpt

Jim
We met in homelessness.
Two stray New Englanders
looking for Yeats and Whitter
in the alleys of Chicago.
Food appeared to be scarce
due more to heritage yankee pride
than larders empty
of cereal, of gruel,
of five pound government cheese,
of one pound chunks of butter.
Conversation was rife
with historical consequences
of hungry youths
women named Barbara.
Yeats widening gyre
spun past life's roadblocks
as if it were fall
and repairing the Dan Ryan had
stopped.
Whitter took us through fields
of Catholic Charities
god was not found
but Browning's heaven was.
Jim found his way to Wellington
and Cicero
majestically decorated.
I found my way to Logan
Boulevard
in need of repair.
With a roof for full moon birthday parties,
poetry workshops,
the Unofficial Soup Kitchen,
expended our meager Chicago
oeuvres,
performance pieces of longevity.
Under the best of destinations
the food chain alters our route
to hospital after hospital
to aright our bodies to the
original trek.

---
this excerpt is from the collection "lady rutherfurd's cauliflower" by norman porter jr., a.k.a. chicago poet and antiwar activist j.j. jameson. he was arrested tuesday for killing two people in massachusetts; the murders happened 20 years ago.

another drama worthy of chicago (and this time, no writer in this city spruced it up - until yesterday's trib story). no one will want to live here, now. [ romanticized chicago-poet-is-actually-a-killer trib story ]  ¶ 3/25/2005 06:53:00 PM