Chicago

A stinking swamp
burned up,
ploughed out,
put on display.

Flames gave way to Burnham’s
right-angled
concrete streets.

Mangled skeletons
found in the bowels
of a castle,
masked by
white marble.

The garble
of its politicians
deemed this city
windy.

And while White
folks appropriated lindy
in jazz halls and speakeasies,
Black folks brought gritty
guitar riffs and janked out,
jukin’ hips to back room blues.

The city used
eight-lane highways
sprawled in diagonal rays
to separate and segregate
white from black,
rich from poor.

Symmetry interrupted.

A long line of mayors corrupted
and then disrupted by
the sharp, quick wit
of CPS youth,
truth whipping fromtheir tongues.

This city
undeniably and reliably
second to none.

And yet,
when violence sells,
media quells
stories of liberation
from a generation
whose voices are
louder than a bomb.

Photo credit:clio1789