night of the verbena

or "another diary entry about a semi-magical evening featuring the moon, old friends, personal insecurity and assorted odd chicago mainstays"
(currently listening to: a rotating fan)

i saw the first ghost i'd
seen in years
today
a block off belmont
he was running
chasing
someone
a shadow on a brick wall
with no person to match
intent
today
moments of work and work-art were
pulled apart
by
Pagans
who danced centered
spinning fire
and glowsticks to substitute fire
drums and flutes, and brass to stand in for people who never learned
to play the flute
the palms of their feet
tremoring
slapping at the sand
to pull the moon out from the lake
they got the whole thing
bloodshot and full and bigger than my fist,
the faces that were only
this much
realer than ghosts,
that dance in the summer
with pieces of the moon in their eye
showed up
because it was time to be seen again
mosquitos gathered into constellations
pigs rode bicycles along
waterfront paths
beaten cliched

the moon
now
peaked
hides behind a building
it is too young to have ambition;
all of its friends are insane and live on Argyle
there's a cloud that looks like a fist punching a ballerina
or perhaps a dragonfly with a muffler
that happens to be a bad muffler
trailing past

i won't see sarah tomorrow
for days
maybe, maybe
for the best
we're getting as stale as we are cute, that kind of
unchecked impotence
I felt
when girls I wanted
to fuck
called me a big ole teddy bear
we have to kill the routine

it is a first solstice
with its cheeky, red moons
with a charming speech impediment and bad scars from acne
there's saltwater in the air.
the man on the bench
next to me
on belmont proper
is trying to make a connection
but he can't with me,
I'm not in Chicago yet
he wants me to take him home but I'm nowhere near it.
Everything ends in the spectre of the work ahead.
I can count three weeks in any direction before it gets weird and fuzzy, and
maybe by the time I've finished breathing in another town's cigarettes
I'll be able to meet
strangers again