J.J. Tindall

Lawrence at Versailles

“ABC Sunday/Monday Night at the Movies”
fed me into Lawrence of Arabia dreams, right
before I crashed. Same w/”High Plains Drifter”
and “Ice Station Zebra:” Peter O’Tindall, Clint
Tindall, Rock Tindall, this kind of thing. Now I
dream of going back in time for real, sitting
Lawrence down at Versailles and explaining
to him just exactly how all this shit was gonna go

For the next century or so,
how we do things in the real goddam world, see,
as if he didn’t already know.

#chicago #poetry #poetryonmastodon

Sphinx of Procopius

An electric dragonfly with blue glass wings
circles the head of this blue glass sphinx
machined by the brothers of Procopius Abbey.
Its eyes light their private cemetery at night.
Its paws are poised upon a blue glass harmonium
and if you throw a diamond over your shoulder,
the harmonium begins to play: fugues, hymns,
laments, odes. One per diamond. Then it goes silent
but for the faintly discernible hum of electric dragonfly
wings, dragonfly dive bombing for diamonds,
blue wings throwing blue shadows across the graves.

#chicago #poetry #poetryonmastodon

Train Wreck Tindall

Can you IMAGINE
What my therapist

Really thinks?!
I mean

Really really.

#chicago #poetry #poetryonMastodon

Bomb TV I’m only just now really getting into Bill Evans. It’s a little embarrassing! My mind guerrilla found this Rabbit hole down to a fallout shelter. One the birds forgot, left behind. Lotta good records down there, Cold War stuff, Mind beat down By the constant threat of nuclear annihilation. I can dig it. #chicago #poetry #poetryonMastodon

Auden Would Be Like

Yesterday I was like
“March 1, 2026” like

Auden going “September 1,
1939.” You feel me?

Btw Auden ended up
Hating that poem b/c

He felt he pussed out, should’ve
Said “we must love one another

AND die.”
I’m so there.

#chicago #poetry #poetryonMastodon

Khan at Tehran After the murder Of his envoys by The Shah, Genghis let his subordinates Jebe & Subutai Do the dirty work. They were Good at it! #chicago #poetry #poetryonMastodon

RATTLER

My belly is my ear
And I feel every boot.
My tongue is my nose

And I breathe every rat.
No heavy boot treads
Will speckle my back--

I got diamonds there!
Silently slide, patiently slither
Through every creaking night.

You mightn’t
hear me rattle
Before I bite.

#chicago #poetry #poetryonMastodon

Red Dawn: A Silent Cinepoem

https://youtube.com/shorts/oiVQQrBwNBE?feature=share

#chicago #poetry #PoetryOnMastodon

Black Ice

A killer to the
wrongfooted, disguised by snow,
black ice is blood ice.

#chicago #poetry #poetryonmastodon

J.J. Tindall's Frankenstein: A Cinepoem at YouTube

https://youtu.be/qKvJwdzmxuI?si=EG_zFk7cHLa3l4dg

#chicago #poetry

Uncle Sam’s Beard

P-3F Orion jets now rest
Beneath the minarets of Beirut,
North of the Golan, south of the Dog
River. Where Shelley’s stone statue
Stood. In the sand. W/the cold command.
That one. Wait: Yul in Ten Commandments
(Keith Richards was in that! Check the credits).
Anyway the beards were always fake.
Like Playboy Bunny tails, see.
Unlike Uncle Sam’s beard which was real as John
Brown’s body. Yul’s GGGD, Hatshepsut,
a girl, became Pharaoh and wore one, too.
She was mighty. Well, you know, for a girl.

#chicago #poetry

Modernist Edit of the Previous Poem on Stefano Stefani

Two piles of peanut shells on the bar top;
Curly black hair backlit by the Blackhawks logo

In neon.

#chicago #poetry

Stefano Stefani at Phyllis’ for Championship #6

We were both getting really uptight,
Two piles of peanut shells on the bar top.
For Bulls’ Championship number SIX actually
The bar wasn’t packed, the streets
Weren’t quite freaking out. A fucking
Chicago team was making it routine!
Yes, I agree: HOLY SCREAMIN’-IN-AGONY
JESUS. It got close near the end and, man, and
We took it entirely seriously, his curly
Black hair backlit by the Blackhawks logo

In neon.

#chicago #poetry

The Ice Age

I got pics of all the
Extra snowplows for the Printer’s Row Festival
In the South Loop
Because of all the, you know,

Snow in early September.

#chicago #poetry

Inspired by Feminism, I’ll Never Marry

Nobody
Tells me

Who I am.

#chicago #poetry

Chicago Pigeon

I scanned a bronze & teal pigeon
At loiter on the black snow.
I blanched at reports
From a pistol in the alley.
I remain enhanced—wait!—
Enchanted

By the night skyline pixelated
On the bleak, black lake.

#chicago #poetry

My Palestinian Buddy

His skin is only a little brown, ok?
ICE was in his south side neighborhood
Harassing his neighbor…wait:
For the youngsters out there, ICE is
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
In the United States of America
And their job is to fuck w/brown people.
You feel me? Pretty weird, yeah. They
Seem to enjoy their work. Where was I?
He’s a citizen but his name is Ahmed. IKR?!

#Chicago #poetry

Cornwallis on the Wire, Fellas

A line of blues from the old days
In West Town, usually around July 4th,
As The Man starts making you smell
His balls. You feel me. Posting the
“No Estacionarse” sign just before
Whipping out his pen, fucking virtually
Licking the end of it, then writing us
A greasy ticket. Boo ya, money suck…A
Generation later I can smell that mother-
Fucker lurking. These days are right now.

#chicago #poetry

Give A Little Whistle

Every savvy social media manager
Worth their salt, from the first one--
Brought with the Hittites
To Kadesh (ask ChatGPT)--
To even you yourself, would know better:
“Sometimes let your conscience
Be your guide!” Wait: most Fridays
Are white, we all agree. There sure aren’t
Any brown ones. We bristle at brown.
We whistle when we know right
From wrong! Get a whistle, and give.

#chicago #poetry