Best Poems About / On CHICAGO
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197.
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Lambert Hutchins
I have two monuments besides this granite obelisk:
One, the house I built on the hill,
With its spires, bay windows, and roof of slate;
The other, the lake-front in Chicago,
Where the railroad keeps a switching yard,
With whistling engines and crunching wheels,
And smoke and soot thrown over the city,
And the crash of cars along the boulevard, --
A blot like a hog-pen on the harbor
Of a great metropolis, foul as a sty.
I helped to give this heritage
To generations yet unborn, with my vote
In the House of Representatives,
And the lure of the thing was to be at rest
From the never-ending fright of need,
And to give my daughters gentle breeding,
And a sense of security in life.
But, you see, though I had the mansion house
And traveling passes and local distinction,
I could hear the whispers, whispers, whispers,
Wherever I went, and my daughters grew up
With a look as if some one were about to strike them;
And they married madly, helter-skelter,
Just to get out and have a change.
And what was the whole of the business worth?
Why, it wasn't worth a damn!
Edgar Lee Masters
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Read more: house poems, city poems, change poems, life poems, daughter poems, car poems, travel poems
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198.
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On The Early English Poem The Ruin
Mile-wide ruin of a city,
ruin of a town,
told tales fragmented,
your lost poet foiled,
his ruined poem
once whole on vellum, torn,
blackened to earth,
shrunk into microfilm.
Bath was the city
that bred bright balladry,
a rumoured recital,
rare fresh-inked flower.
Rime in the mortar,
rime on the broken tiles,
gold on flashing water,
fragment of a world.
Fires, excavations,
puzzle your pathway,
for history existed
even in history.
Poet whose part is past,
wide-eyed wanderer,
ply us with phrases,
your damaged verses
ancient slabs
over springs still known to us,
piped streams
running with language.
Rime on the broken tiles,
lines on the damaged page.
Flare, crumple, char.
Vain, vanish with the Weirds.
2009 [recorded at Chicago Calling Festival 2011]
Sally Evans
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199.
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Welcome To The World
My heart is pounding at the speed of a drum
Almost as hard and fast as the vibration of my phone
Phone calls from family members all across Chicago
Worries, cries, sobbers, and tears fill my ears
Through the other side of the phone
I myself have fear throughout my body
For I am hundreds of miles away from home
He has to come. Why isn't he here yet?
We're waiting for his arrival
Why isn't he here?
11 o'clock at night, when everyone's asleep
He's here. He's finally here. March 25th 2008.
Brown hair, brown eyes 9 pounds and 6 ounces
Phone calls now fill my ears with relief, happiness and excitement
The missing piece to our puzzle was found.
Our puzzle is now complete
Lee Lopez
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200.
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Leaving the Station
Each morning
I step from the train
and march with the others
leaving the station.
The weatherman's warned of rain
so we're armed
with umbrellas,
our briefcases swinging.
Across from the station
there's an old hotel
high in the sky. King Kong,
everyone calls it.
In tall windows
old men appear,
disappear, reappear.
It is August in Chicago
and the old men wear
overcoats and homburgs
so no one can steal them.
They light cigarettes,
mumble and curse
at the daily parade
leaving the station.
Traffic is thick
but even in winter
no one looks up
since no one can hear them.
Donal Mahoney
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