Arthur Fox

Chicago Commute

Under a sky the color of nothing
plastic sacks scour the pavement.
Shivering in flocks, they roost in the razorwire.
Fishbowl people in the train windows race
past a city demolishing its history.
Thank you God for gang tags, plastic bags,
trackside weeds and church steeples.
Save us from angular concrete and edgy glass,
railroads, roadways, and runways.
Straight lines are moving points
that fling us towards convergence
beyond the rim of the world.

 

 

 

St. Patrick's Day Fishermen

Ice nearly gone,
a 20 mile north wind, full sun.
A quarter inch horizon
stained with clouds.

 

Solitary muffled figures
spaced on the concrete,
hooded pillars
in silent vigil.

 

Hand-over-hand
or casting their lures
into the dingy green
uneasy lake.

 

Indifferent gulls pass
chuckling at some secret joke,
like the Amish family that appears
on foot from the station.

 

Gradually the fishermen drift away
with empties and empty creels.
Mostly alone
the way they had come.

 

 

 

Ohio Bluetip

sun soil rain sky
fused in alder alchemy
boxed blue-eyed regiments
each a perfect match

 

quiet patient lucifer
strikes anywhere
and any time
arson, votives, cigarettes
bearing seeds of immolation

 

phoenix freed
of suns long-set
stealthy devouring
fatal birth
living death

Art Fox has experimented with poetry since 2004. He’s moved by the work of Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, and William Carlos Williams. He enjoys photography, skiing, sailing and backpacking. He played blues harmonica until hearing his own recorded efforts. He lives with his wife in Chicago.