Chicago for Carl SandburgA Poem by riskrapper a walk through Chicago in aftermath of the Blizzard of 99 Homage to Carl Sandburg  FIRST DAY 1. Who wanted me to go to Chicago on January 6th? I did! The night before, 20 below zero Fahrenheit with the wind chill; as the blizzard of 99 lay in mountains of blackening snow. I packed two coats, two suits, three sweaters, multiple sets of long johns and heavy white socks for a two-day stay. I left from Newark. Damn the denseness, it confounds! The 2nd City to whom? 2nd ain’t bad. It’s pretty good. If you consider Peking and Prague, Tokyo and Togo, Manchester and Moscow, Port Au Prince and Paris, Athens and Amsterdam, Buenos Aries and Johannesburg; that’s pretty good. What’s going on here today? It’s friggin frozen. To the bone! But Chi Town is still cool. Buddy Guy’s is open. Bartenders mixing drinks, cabbies jamming on their breaks, honey dew waitresses serving sugar, buildings swerving, fire tongued preachers are preaching and the farmers are measuring the moon. The lake, unlike Ontario is in the midst of freezing. Bones of ice threaten to gel into a solid mass over the expanse of the Michigan Lake. If this keeps up, you can walk clear to Toronto on a silver carpet. Along the shore the ice is permanent. It’s the first big frost of winter after a long Indian Summer. Thank God I caught a cab. Outside I hear The Hawk nippin hard. It’ll get your ear, finger or toe. Bite you on the nose too if you ain’t careful. Thank God, I’m not walking the Wabash tonight; but if you do cover up, wear layers. Chicago, could this be Sandburg’s City? I’m overwhelmed and this is my tenth time here. It’s almost better, sometimes it is better, a lot of times it is better and denser then New York. Ask any Bull’s fan. I’m a Knickerbocker. Yes Nueva York, a city that has placed last in the standings for many years. Except the last two. Yanks are # 1! But Chicago is a dynasty, as big as Sammy Sosa’s heart, rich and wide as Michael Jordan’s grin. Middle of a country, center of a continent, smack dab in the mean of a hemisphere, vortex to a world, Chicago! Kansas City, Nashville, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Denver, New Orleans, Dallas, Cairo, Singapore, Auckland, Baghdad, Mexico City and Montreal salute her. 2. Cities, A collection of vanities? Engineered complex utilitarianism? The need for community a social necessity? Ego one with the mass? Civilization’s latest perversion? Chicago is more then that. Jefferson’s yeoman farmer is long gone but this capitol of the Great Plains is still democratic. The citizen’s of this city would vote daily, if they could. Chicago, Sandburg’s Chicago, Could it be? The namesake river segments the city, canals of commerce, all perpendicular, is rife throughout, still guiding barges to the Mississippi and St. Laurence. Now also tourist attractions for a café society. Chicago is really jazzy, swanky clubs, big steaks, juices and drinks. You get the best coffee from Seattle and the finest teas from China. Great restaurants serve liquid jazz al la carte. Jazz Jazz Jazz All they serve is Jazz Rock me steady Keep the beat Keep it flowin Feel the heat! Jazz Jazz Jazz All they is, is Jazz Fast cars will take ya To the show Round bout midnight Where’d the time go? Flows into the Mississippi, the mother of America’s rivers, an empires aorta. Great Lakes wonder of water. Niagara Falls still her heart gushes forth. Buffalo connected to this holy heart. Finger Lakes and Adirondacks are part of this watershed, all the way down to the Delaware and Chesapeake. Sandburg’s Chicago? Oh my my, the wonder of him. Who captured the imagination of the wonders of rivers. Down stream other holy cities from the Mississippi Valley all mapped by him. Its mouth our Dixie Trumpet guarded by righteous Cajun brethren. Midwest? Midwest from where? It’s north of Caracas and Los Angeles, east of Fairbanks, west of Dublin and south of not much. Him, who spoke of honest men and loving women. Working men and mothers bearing citizens to build a nation. The New World’s precocious adolescent caught in a stream of endless and exciting change, much pain and sacrifice, dedication and loss, pride and tribulations. From him we know all the people’s faces. All their stories are told. Never defeating the idea of Chicago. He had the courage to say what was in the heart of the people, who: Defeated the Indians, Mapped the terrain, Aided slavers, Fought a terrible civil war, Hoisted the barges, Grew the food, Whacked the wheat, Sang the songs, Fought many wars of conquest, Cleared the land, Erected the bridges, Trapped the game, Netted the fish, Mined the coal, Forged the steel, Laid the tracks, Fired the tenders, Cut the stone, Mixed the mortar, Plumbed the line, And laid the bricks Of this nation of cities! Pardon the Marlboro Man shtick. It’s a poor expostulation of crass commercial symbolism. Like I said, I’m a Devil Fan from Jersey and Madison Avenue has done its work on me. It’s a strange alchemy that changes a proud Nation of Blackhawks into a merchandising bonanza of hometown hockey shirts, making the native seem alien, and the interloper at home chillin out, warming his feet atop a block of ice, guzzling Old Style with clicker in hand. Give him his beer and other diversions. If he bowls with his buddy’s on Tuesday night I hope he bowls a perfect game. He’s earned it. He works hard. Hard work and faith built this city. And it’s not just the faith that fills the cities thousand churches, temples and mosques on the Sabbath. 3. There is faith in everything in Chicago! An alcoholic broker named Bill lives the Twelve Steps to banish fear and loathing for one more day. Bill believes in sobriety. A tug captain named Moe waits for the spring thaw so he can get the barges up to Duluth. Moe believes in the seasons. A farmer named Tom hopes he has reaped the last of many bitter harvests. Tom believes in a new start. A homeless man named Earl wills himself a cot and a hot at the local shelter. Earl believes in deliverance. A Pullman porter named George works overtime to get his first born through medical school. George believes in opportunity. A folk singer named Woody sings about his countrymen inheritance and implores them to take it. Woody believes in people. A Wobbly named Joe organizes fellow steelworkers to fight for a workers paradise here on earth. Joe believes in ideals. A bookkeeper named Edith is certain she’ll see the Cubs win the World Series in her lifetime. Edith believes in miracles. An electrician named Lech saves money to bring his family over from Gdansk. Lech believes in America. A banker named Leah knows Ditka will return and lead the Bears to another Super Bowl. Leah believes in nostalgia. A cantor named Samuel prays for another 20 years so he can properly train his Temple’s replacement. Samuel believes in tradition. A high school girl named Sally refuses to get an abortion. She knows she carries something special within her. Sally believes in life. A city worker named Mazie ceaselessly prays for her incarcerated son doing 10 years at Cook. Mazie believes in redemption. A jazzer named Bix helps to invent a new art form out of the mist. Bix believes in creativity. An architect named Frank restores the Rookery. Frank believes in space. A soldier named Ike fights wars for democracy. Ike believes in peace. A Rabbi named Jesse sermonizes on Moses. Jesse believes in liberation. Somewhere in Chicago a kid still believes in Shoeless Joe. The kid believes in the integrity of the game. An Imam named Louis is busy building a nation within a nation. Louis believes in self-determination. A teacher named Heidi gives all she has to her students. She has great expectations for them all. Heidi believes in the future. 4. Does Chicago have a future? This city, full of cowboys and wildcatters is predicated on a future! Bang, bang Shoot em up Stake the claim It’s your terrain Drill the hole Strike it rich Top it off You’re the boss Take a chance Watch it wane Try again Heavenly gains Chicago city of futures is a Holy Mecca to all day traders. Their skin is gray, hair disheveled, loud ties and funny coats, thumb through slips of paper held by nail chewed hands. Selling promises with no derivative value for out of the money calls and in the money puts. Strike is not a labor action in this city of unionists, but a speculators mark, a capitalist wish, a hedgers bet, a public debt and a farmers fair return. Indexes for everything. Quantitative models that could burst a kazoo. You know the measure of everything in Chicago. But is it truly objective? Have mathematics banished subjective intentions, routing it in fair practice of market efficiencies, a kind of scientific absolution? I heard that there is a dispute brewing over the amount of snowfall that fell on the 1st. The mayor’s office, using the official city ruler measured 22” of snow on the ground. The National Weather Service says it cannot detect more then 17” of snow. The mayor thinks he’ll catch less heat for the trains that don’t run the buses that don’t arrive and the schools that stand empty with the addition of 5”. The analysts say it’s all about capturing liquidity. Liquidity, can you place a great lake into an eyedropper? Its 20 below and all liquid things are solid masses or a gooey viscosity at best. Water is frozen everywhere. But Chi town is still liquid, flowing faster then the digital blips flashing on the walls of the CBOT. Dreams are never frozen in Chicago. The exchanges trade without missing a beat. Trading wet dreams, the crystallized vapor of an IPO pledging a billion points of Internet access or raiding the public treasuries of a central bank’s huge stores of gold with currency swaps. Using the tools of butterfly spreads and candlesticks to achieve the goal. Short the Russell or buy the Dow, go long the CAC and DAX. Are you trading in euro’s? You better be or soon will. I know you’re Chicago, you’ll trade anything. WEBS, Spiders, and Leaps are traded here, along with sweet crude, North Sea Brent, plywood and T-Bill futures; and most importantly the commodities, the loam that formed this city of broad shoulders. What about our wheat? Still whacking and breadbasket to the world. Oil, an important fossil fuel denominated in good ole greenbacks. Porkbellies, not just hogwash on the Wabash, but bacon, eggs and flapjacks are on the menu of every diner in Jersey as the “All American.” Cotton, our contribution to the Golden Triangle, once the global currency used to enrich a gentlemen class of cultured southern slavers, now Tommy Hilfiger’s preferred fabric. I think he sends it to Bangkok where child slave labor spin it into gold lamay. Sorghum, I think its hardy. Soybeans, the new age substitute for hamburger goes great with tofu lasagna. Corn, ADM creates ethanol, they want us to drive cleaner cars. Cattle, once driven into this city’s bloodhouses for slaughter, now ground into a billion Big Macs every year. When does a seed become a commodity? When does a commodity become a future? When does a future expire? You can find the answers to these questions in Chicago and find a fortune in a hole in the floor. Look down into the pits. Hear the screams of anguish and profitable delights. Frenzied men swarming like a mass of epileptic ants atop the worlds largest sugar cube auger the worlds free markets. The scene is more chaotic then 100 Haymarket Square Riots multiplied by 100 1968 Democratic Conventions. Amidst inverted anthills, they scurry forth and to in distinguished black and red coats. Fighting each other as counterparties to a life and death transaction. This is an efficient market that crosses the globe. Oil from the Sultan of Brunei, Yen from the land of Hitachi, Long Bonds from the Fed, nickel from Quebec, platinum and palladium from Siberia, FTSE’s from London and crewel cane from Havana circle these pits. Tijuana, Shanghai and Istanbul's best traders are only half as good as the average trader in Chicago. Chicago, this hog butcher to the world, specializes in packaging and distribution. Men in blood soaked smocks, still count the heads entering the gates of the city. Their handiwork is sent out on barges and rail lines as frozen packages of futures waiting for delivery to an anonymous counterparty half a world away. This nation’s hub has grown into the premier purveyor to the world; along all the rivers, highways, railways and estuaries it’s tentacles reach. 5. Sandburg’s Chicago, is a city of the world’s people. Many striver rows compose its many neighborhoods. Nordic stoicism, Eastern European orthodoxy and Afro-American calypso vibrations are three of many cords strumming the strings of Chicago. Sandburg’s Chicago, if you wrote forever you would only scratch its surface. People wait for trains to enter the city from O’Hare. Frozen tears lock their eyes onto distant skyscrapers, solid chunks of snot blocks their nose and green icicles of slime crust mustaches. They fight to breathe. Sandburg’s Chicago is The Land of Lincoln, Savior of the Union, protector of the Republic. Sent armies of sons and daughters, barges, boxcars, gunboats, foodstuffs, cannon and shot to raze the south and stamp out succession. Old Abe’s biography are still unknown volumes to me. I must see and read the great words. You can never learn enough; but I’ve been to Washington and seen the man’s memorial. The Free World’s 8th wonder, guarded by General Grant, who still keeps an eye on Richmond and a hand on his sword. Through this American winter Abe ponders. The vista he surveys is dire and tragic. Our sitting President impeached for lying about a blowjob. Party partisans in the senate are sworn and seated. Our Chief Justice, adorned with golden bars will adjudicate the proceedings. It is the perfect counterpoint to an ageless Abe thinking with malice toward none and charity towards all, will heal the wounds of the nation. Abe our granite angel, Chicago goes on, The Union is strong! SECOND DAY 1. Out my window the sun has risen. According to the local forecast its minus 9 going up to 6 today. The lake, a golden pillow of clouds is frozen in time. I marvel at the ancients ones resourcefulness and how they mastered the extreme elements. Past, present and future has no meaning in the Citadel of the Prairie today. I set my watch to Central Standard Time. Stepping into the hotel lobby the concierge with oil smooth hair, perfect tie and English lilt impeccably asks, “Do you know where you are going Sir? Can I give you a map?” He hands me one of Chicago. I see he recently had his nails done. He paints a green line along Whacker Drive and says, “turn on Jackson, LaSalle, Wabash or Madison and you’ll get to where you want to go.” A walk of 14 or 15 blocks from Streeterville- (I start at The Chicago White House. They call it that because Hillary Rodham stays here when she’s in town. Its’ also alleged that Stedman eats his breakfast here but Opra has never been seen on the premises. I wonder how I gained entry into this place of elite’s?) -down into the center of The Loop. Stepping out of the hotel, The Doorman sporting the epaulets of a colonel on his corporate winter coat and furry Cossack hat swaddling his round black face accosts me. The skin of his face is flaking from the subzero windburn. He asks me with a gapped toothy grin, “Can I get you a cab?” “No I think I’ll walk,” I answer. “Good woolen hat, thick gloves you should be alright.” He winks and lets me pass. I step outside. The Windy City flings stabbing cold spears flying on wings of 30-mph gusts. My outside hardens. I can feel the freeze deepen into my internalness. I can’t be sure but inside my heart still feels warm. For how long I cannot say. I commence my walk among the spires of this great city, the vertical leaps that anchor the great lake, holding its place against the historic frigid assault. The buildings’ sway, modulating to the blows of natures wicked blasts. It’s a hard imposition on a city and its people. The gloves, skullcap, long underwear, sweater, jacket and overcoat not enough to keep the cold from penetrating the person. Like discerning the layers of this city, even many layers, still not enough to understand the depth of meaning of the heart of this heartland city. Sandburg knew the city well. Set amidst groves of suburbs that extend outward in every direction. Concentric circles surround the city. After the burbs come farms, Great Plains, and mountains. Appalachians and Rockies are but mere molehills in the city’s back yard. It’s terra firma stops only at the sea. Pt. Barrow to the Horn, many capes extended. On the periphery its appendages, its extremities, its outward extremes. All connected by the idea, blown by the incessant wind of this great nation. The Windy City’s message is sent to the world’s four corners. It is a message of power. English the worlds common language is spoken here, along with Ebonics, Espanol, Mandarin, Czech, Russian, Korean, Arabic, Hindi, German, French, electronics, steel, cars, cartoons, rap, sports, movies, capital, wheat and more. Always more. Much much more in Chicago. 2. Sandburg spoke all the dialects. He heard them all, he understood with great precision to the finest tolerances of a lathe workers micrometer. Sandburg understood what it meant to laugh and be happy. He understood the working mans day, the learned treatises of university chairs, the endless tomes of the city’s great libraries, the lost languages of the ancient ones, the secret codes of abstract art, the impact of architecture, the street dialects and idioms of everyman expression of life. All fighting for life, trying to build a life, a new life in this modern world. Walking across the Michigan Avenue Bridge I see the Wrigley Building is neatly carved, catty cornered on the plaza. I wonder if Old Man Wrigley watched his barges loaded with spearmint and double-mint move out onto the lake from one of those Gothic windows perched high above the street. Would he open a window and shout to the men below to quit slaking and work harder or would he between the snapping sound he made with his mouth full of his chewing gum offer them tickets to a ballgame at Wrigley Field that afternoon? Would the men below be able to understand the man communing from such a great height? I listen to a man and woman conversing. They are one step behind me as we meander along Wacker Drive. “You are in Chicago now.” The man states with profundity. “If I let you go you will soon find your level in this city. Do you know what I mean?” No I don’t. I think to myself. What level are you I wonder? Are you perched atop the transmission spire of the Hancock Tower? I wouldn’t think so or your ears would melt from the windburn. I’m thinking. Is she a kept woman? She is majestically clothed in fur hat and coat. In animal pelts not trapped like her, but slaughtered farms I’m sure. What level is he speaking of? Many levels are evident in this city; many layers of cobbled stone, Pennsylvania iron, Hoosier Granite and vertical drops. I wonder if I detect condensation in his voice? What is his intention? Is it a warning of a broken affair? A pending pink slip? Advise to an addict refusing to adhere to a recovery regimen? What is his level anyway? Is he so high and mighty? Higher and mightier then this great city which we are all a part of, which we all helped to build, which we all need in order to keep this nation the thriving democratic empire it is. This seditious talk! 3. The Loop’s El still course through the main thoroughfares of the city. People are transported above the din of the street, looking down on the common pedestrians like me. Super CEO’s populating the upper floors of Romanesque, Greek Revivalist, New Bauhaus, Art Deco and Post Nouveau Neo-Modern Avant-Garde towers are too far up to see me shivering on the street. The cars, busses, trains and trucks are all covered with the film of rock salt. Salt covers my bootless feet and smudges my cloths as well. The salt, the primal element of the earth covers everything in Chicago. It is the true level of this city. The layer beneath all layers, on which everything rests, is built, grows, thrives then dies. To be returned again to the lower layers where it can take root again and grow out onto the great plains. Splashing the nation, anointing its people with its blessing. A blessing, Chicago? All rivers come here. All things found its way here through the canals and back bays of the world’s greatest lakes. All roads, rails and air routes begin and end here. Mrs. O’Leary’s cow got a bum rap. It did not start the fire, we did. We lit the torch that flamed the city to cinders. From a pile of ash Chicago rose again. Forever Chicago! Forever the lamp that burns bright on a Great Lake’s western shore! Chicago the beacon sends the message to the world with its windy blasts, on chugging barges, clapping trains, flying tandems, T1 circuits and roaring jets. Sandburg knew a Chicago I will never know. He knew the rhythm of life the people walked to. The tools they used, the dreams they dreamed the songs they sang, the things they built, the things they loved, the pains that hurt, the motives that grew, the actions that destroyed the prayers they prayed, the food they ate their moments of death. Sandburg knew the layers of the city to the depths and windy heights I cannot fathom. The Blues came to this city, on the wing of a chirping bird, on the taps of a rickety train, on the blast of an angry sax rushing on the wind, on the West End blitz of Pop's brash coronet, on the tink of a twinkling piano on a paddle-wheel boat and on the strings of a lonely man’s guitar. Walk into the clubs, tenements, row houses, speakeasies and you’ll hear the Blues. Tidewater Blues from Virginia, Delta Blues from the lower Mississippi, Boogie Woogie from Appalachia, Texas Blues from some Lone Star, Big Band Blues from Kansas City, Blues from Beal Street, Jelly Roll’s Blues from the Latin Quarter. Hell even Chicago got its own brand of Blues. Its all here. It ended up here and was sent away on the winds of westerly blows to the ear of an eager world on strong jet streams of simple melodies and hard truths. A broad shouldered woman, a single mother stands on the street with three crying babes. Their cloths are covered in salt. She pleads for a break, praying for a new start. Poor and under-clothed against the torrent of frigid weather she begs for help. Her blond hair and facial features suggests her Scandinavian heritage. I wonder if she is related to Sandburg as I walk past her on the street. Her feet are bleeding through her canvass sneakers. Her babes mouths are zipped shut with frozen drivel and mucous. The Blues live on in Chicago. The Blues will forever live in her. As I turn the corner to walk the Miracle Mile I see her engulfed in a funnel cloud of salt, snow and bits of white paper, swirling around her and her children in an angry unforgiving maelstrom. The family begins to dissolve like a snail sprinkled with salt; and a mother and her children just disappear into the pavement at the corner of Dearborn, in Chicago. Music Selection: Robert Johnson Sweet Home Chicago jbm Chicago 1/7/99 © 2012 riskrapperReviews
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