why do white people insist on ruining chicago?

chicago avenue, on my way to the tapas place

i flicked my tongue
to soothe a sore, and chapped lip
caught an errant snowflake
and remembered why i love the season




...meanwhile, a few blocks east
a particulously heinous stretch of concrete oft-called magnificent
where reigned horses still trot for cooing couples and you can still see dancing in the street in front of the all-night mcdonalds

a room full of honkies

they are sick of the clamor
of black children with white buckets
'these [black] children are creating a warzone'

they we can't sleep in their towers
they say

I've lived with drummers; I know how they feel

but these drummers aren't drumming for practice
they only drum for people,
crowds of people who do not linger to listen to drummers
during sleeping hours

so now
at noon
are the streets silent?

do they whistle at all
like they used to?
like white gloves and orange vests helping ladies and children navigate through stopped cars
do they click?
like the changing of the lights on the signs at the crosswalks
do they beep and honk?
like the endless parade of 18-wheelers loading and unloading all sorts of unknowable luxuries, forcing traffic to a halt
do they screech?
like the rubber-braking friction at the too-short yellows at the too-busy intersections
are the sounds hollow and mulling?
like the collected conversation of a hundred thousand herding
do they flap?
like billfolds and litter

I wonder

are speeches performances?
(i've always thought the good ones were)
what about preachers? eccentrics?
pampleteers and streetwise?

do you feel safer now?

there wasn't much for me on the mag mile, anyway
they've probably just pushed the good stuff closer
it's still sad though, every day is the end of another era in the city by the lake
and I can't stop blaming white people