Tag Archives: Chicago

The Great Flood of ’27

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Down from heaven
Out of the sky
Families huddled
Grown men cried
Towns were flooded
Farmlands drowned
Then came the surging
Mississippi flood tide

The deluge flowed
Down the Mississip
A tragic, sordid story
White folk got
What help was had
Black folk; just more misery

Forced at gunpoint
To work the docks
No pay coming
No false hopes
Starving and sick
Herded like cattle
Constricted
Bedraggled

So with a gunny sack
And the clothes on their back
Some headed north
Along the railroad track
Farms washed away
Homes destroyed
Fled for St Louis
Chicago and Detroit

Escaping Jim Crow’s
Living hell
To like the crowded strip
Of Bronzeville
Jobs and slightly
Less oppression there
But soon the Great Depression
More despair

Washington, Illinois, 11/17/13

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from the western skies it came
the darkened clouds
the wind, the rain, the hail
tracked by radar
moving swiftly soon
saw emptied seats of soldier field
the moiling heavens cast
the downward spiral spinning,
churning,
ripping

minutes later – quiet rain
the twisted strip of splinters left
cannot tell the tale
cannot record the loss
cannot explain

i was walking in chicago

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i caught a whiff
          of spring just now
outside the school
          in middle march
the breeze is brisk
          but it is not cold
there is some snow
          still on the ground tho’
yet by nightfall
          dark will come the
colder wafts return as
          winter breezes back
but in this scent
          i do suspect
it won’t be long
          the icy, frigid
frost-bound days
          aren’t with us
curs’d no more

I’m In Heaven

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The sun beats down
     On the North Beach sand
Linda and Mary
     In their summer tan
Sipping lemonade
     As my skin gets fried
(1, 2, 3, 4)
     I must have died

I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)

Crowded into Kroll’s
     For the Sunday game
Bears at Packers
     I can feel the flame
Suzie and Karen
     Shouting football pride
(1, 2, 3, 4)
     I must have died

I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)

At Chief O’Neill’s
     In the afternoon
Drinking pints with a woman
     That I met in June
I can’t remember her name
     But you know I’ve tried
It doesn’t matter . . .
     I must have died

I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)

I’m on the Near West Side
     Underneath the moon
Sitting on a couch
     In The Tasting Room
I’ve got Connie and Becky
     On either side
(1, 2, 3, 4)
     I must have died

I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)
I’m in heaven (do da do-da do)