Chicago A Concrete River I Miss
70There's a tribal Native American Ojibwa spirit hiding in Chicago
A Thunderstorm Of Words 4 Chicago
Winds rushing past on Lincoln Avenue gravel
Asphalt and lots of grit mixed with gasoline
There are cars racing by in monotonous buzzer patterns
Bubble gum oily and grey and dirty mixed saturated with bacteria
Turning rolling broiling into black and blotched numbness brains
A forte of humanity lying prone on the roadway
Waiting patiently for bicyclists to fall upon and rub cheeks into
Roaring like a ravens wing in a windswept dust carpet
Tunnels of time and paychecks
Go drifting into forever or at least until Armitage Avenue
Then Lake Shore Drive whistling forward lysurgically acidically
Upon the Drake Hotel
Michigan Avenue girls sailing short skirts
Lushness sexy madness
Waving into the night the lakes waves rolling and rolling and rolling
Wondering where are the sturgeon and coyote trapped on ice floes and in delis
Somewhere a young man with an old man's spirit is riding on eight wheels
Bringing bad news to the city
To pay for raw fish and underwear and desires of the hungry platitudes
Still there's no place for a lost soul
No misfit oil painter
No room in an Institute of Art
Only room for mockingbirds and demagogues and sycophants
Only rewards for antiunion union workers clandestine shit piles
Oil wrecks called actresses all petroleum in spirit
The Swiss Hotel treatment is like a white satin mistress
Tearing at something buried hidden
A wondering mystic lost in a tribe in a country forgotten woods
A pulsing quasi star maybe planetoid maybe hot dog with celery salt
There in the quiet crying sometimes
In sadness
Sometimes
In joy
A man dare an artist or poet or lumbering oaf of rye withering greens
More words from poet Ben Zoltak
- Ben Zoltak on HubPages
I am no longer an innocent man. I am an oil painter and a writer and some days, when the sun shines through the mist in the air and the birds...
- Power Full Moon
This photo was taken at 2 in the A.M. after I was stirred awake by a dream. My eyelids shake like rose petal thunder to A dazzling graph of red, orange, yellow and silver Rattling my bones like...
- Ode To Poe: Oh Nasty, Smelly, Stained Carpet
Oh nasty, smelly, stained carpet You are a dead Mammoth In my abode A dead Mammoth That throngs of drunkards and Poorly groomed dogs Have micturated upon Nasty, Smelly, Stained Carpet Though I spent...
- An Artist's Dream: Oil Paint, Heirloom Tomatoes And A Turtle Pond
From the Oil Painting: Dancing With Black-Eyed Susan by artist Ben Zoltak Most of my early life, when I told people I was an artist, they generally sneered and scoffed at the notion. "You'll never be famous....
- Undercover Prunes - A Poem About Dried Plums
There is a secret on the street, in the alleyway, in the woods. Whispers hidden behind snickering faces, making even carnivores blush. Something so old fashioned, something that brings old folks gains ...
- 8 Fourteens 3000 Wandering Stacatto Canvas Satellite Connections
Ben Zoltak Maul 2010 Worm Heaven Traveling Fever Best Caffeine Broadside Uruguay 5007 !!! Bramble Neanderthal withering fortuitous velvet dinner? Why not? Super compass silver diamond river flapping...
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Thank you Hello, hello for your kind words.
It is my hope that there still is a place for a misfit oil painter or two in the world... I like to believe the world needs us creative-types, even if they don't know they need us.
Have a good Sunday, Ben.
Mike
Very lyrical and filled your usual mystical imagery, Ben. Rated up.
Deep man. Loved the twisting imagery.
I love it. From your very creative title to everything you describe! Two thumbs up, Ben!
Thank you for the well wishes Mike, I think you are right the world needs us dammit. I really felt tapped into my old school poetry reading days with this collection.
Thanks for the descriptive compliments Green Lotus! Your comments are always warm.
Very creative. I loved the hub.
Thanks Janny, twisting imagery from a mildy twisted dude.
Thank you Ann your warm words melt my heart.
Okay it made me think. Unusual, I don't do that much anymore. Dang, had to look up a couple of words. Still don't know quite what to make of them. Made me want to wander through the city though. I guess I had an emotional response! Wow! And I don't even like poetry. Thanks.
Thanks Pamela for your kind words!
Thanks Pamela for your kind words!
Steve! You appear to be a great thinking man to me, but I'm honored and flattered that you took a look at my poetry despite not caring for poetry much. There's not much better in life than when your expectations of something get turned on it's head. Poetry is very forgiving, probably why I like it best, now dryer drive belts on the other hand! Relentless! Thanks for your kind words.
You have a wonderful way with words, Ben!
Thanks for your kind compliment my friend Habee!!!!
We used to love visiting Chicago the four years my husband and I lived in Wisconsin Rapids. Michigan Avenue, the Drake Hotel, The Art Institute of Chicago and so much more was brought alive by your poetry. We actually joined the Field Museum when the King Tut exhibit was there, so got to the head of the line as members the next time we were there for a visit.
OOH, I would have loved to have seen that exhibit Peggy, really enthralling. Thank you for recognizing my poetry, no small feat in our digitized world!!!
Good read bro... I'm thinking about going to Chicago and maybe catching a White Sox game.
Sox fans are your kind of people Bill, I tell you what! I know you'd have a helluva time at a Sox game I hope you do. If and when you do make sure to get a couple of Chicago style hot dogs!
Wouldn't miss the Chicago dogs for the world... I may actually make my way up there late August or early September...
Good to know, give me a couple weeks heads up maybe I'd do a quick day trip down to Chi town and grab a beer with ya. We're expecting a baby around here in July so I might not be able to pull it off but lemme know.
Very good and compelling poetry. I enjoyed it. And I love Chicago.
Honored to have a James Watkins comment here, I know you and I don't see eye to eye on many things, but I admire a man who has the magnanimity to commiserate with people other than his own feather.
Thanks for the compliment Jim.
Ben
Congrats on the little one man... I'll definitely give you a shout if I am going to be able to make it up that way. Take care man.
Thanks big Bill, we will see in a few weeks if we're gettin' a boy or a girl! Would be pretty cool to catch a game if we could ever line it up. Take care too hombre!
It's a boy!!!
fantastic !
roswebb: I am humbled!
Ben
Yeah, but outside of New York, California, Oregon and North Carolina, Wisconsin is the most beautiful state in the union. I've been to Illinois and it is all flat and corn fields. Chicago's a great town, but brrrr.
Very nice, I like it!
Chicago is certainly a city of contrasts.
Thanks Jason, and for including Wisconsin in your group. If you think Chicago's brrr, spend a winter in Minneapolis, cold in stacks and rolls!
Cheers
Ben
Thanks Laura! Denver's a great town too (although the time I spent there was between bars, I only remember being happy, all other details are hazy, hehe)
Thanks for your warm words,
Ben
Hou ave a nice flow of words in your writings.
Thanks Peter, I'm big on word texture when I look back on it with you.
Cheers.
Ben
Hi Ben,
The King Tut exhibit is once again traveling to the U.S. and will be shown in Houston. Not sure where it goes from there. With any luck maybe it will show up in your "neck of the woods" or somewhere nearby so that you do get to see it someday. It is amazing!
Ah I would love to see that exhibit, I'll check Mam, Moca and the Chazen to see if the King Tut exhibit will shoot this way, thanks Peg.
Ben
Hello, hello, 2 years ago
A wonderful read, thank you.