Patron, Publisher and Publican Steve Rhodes pops the caps on litres of lager and loads Bob's Beachwood Inn for an evening of Ale and Alliteration by Chicago's best practicing and published poet -J.J. Tindall on Thursday October 14th - Unbuckle your chin straps! Grab a knee! Coach Steve's got soemthing to say. . .spit out that gum!
I'll be behind the bar tonight at the glorious Beachwood Inn slinging drinks and singing songs 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Ten free picks on the jukebox for whoever gets to them first! Other specials:
* Old Style: $2.50. Yes, that's a special!
* $1 off bottom shelf. That's the lowest shelf!
* Free football pizza from John's! Made to order!
* Free pool for $1!
* Dr. Dude pinball!
* Monday Night Football in HDTV!
* 18 jukebox picks for $5!
* And bar jokes!
Please join us on Thursday, October 14 for a very special presentation of J.J. Tindall's Ballots From The Dead at Open Books -
Open Books
213 W Institute Place, Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 475-1355 ()
Then amble over to Beachwood Inn
Choose your own poem to read from our Chicagoetry collection and bring books to donate to our gracious host, Open Books.
Also, don't forget our Thursday books event at Open Books.
Open Books
213 W Institute Place, Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 475-1355 ()
See you there!
Steve Rhodes
Editor & Publisher | Beachwood Media
-
www.beachwoodreporter.com
www.agonyandivy.com
J.J. Tindall has a practiced ear for lyrical poetry and gives voice to a poetic talent too often drown out by lesser lights. Here is a posting that I made last Fall on J.J. Tindall's works.
I love Poetry and there is a heap of very bad poetry - thanks to Slams and HBO.
Poetry is exacting work - The Sound must seem an echo to the Sense*. It is not something one tosses off when fully Kreuzened and touched by the Red Bull Muse.
One of Chicago's best practicing poets can be found in the pages of Steve Rhodes' wonderful Beachwood Reporter. J.J. Tindall has a great ear and a wonderful heart that shouts out wonderfully humorous lines.
Here's a bit:
Son of St. Francis of My Ass
I'm just trying to have a good time.
Hurt is Hell. Let's have a bell!
TONG! TONG!
And a crow.
My Hell is a deep Christian
well in a raw field
just beyond
the edge of the last
suburb.
A raggedy-ass crow,
nothing noble, no Narcissus
of wire. A red crow
Chicagoetry: Confession To The Future
By J.J. Tindall
Confession to the Future
I strove for wealth and sorely failed,
I did not save a single whale.
I did not raise my children well,
I told my friends to go to hell.
I did not know my neighbor's name,
I juried love a callow game.
I scorched the earth to fight for fame,
I stole a march on any shame.
I greeted fools with charming grace
then wiped that smile right off their face.
I cheated on schoolwork, taxes, wives,
then pleaded innocence all my life.
I sold the farm for booze and coke,
I relished vicious ethnic jokes.
I bought the biggest car I could,
I dumped my garbage in the woods.
I sold insurance on people's health
then prayed they'd die to spare my wealth.
I proffered bonds on people's homes
then jacked the price and rigged the loans.
I razed the forests to drill for oil,
I fouled the air and drugged the soil.
I said anything to get elected
then assured my interests were protected:
wildlife crushed to bone and ash,
mountains scarred with gouge and gash,
rivers poisoned drop by drop,
farmland rendered fetid slop.
Thus your Martian tundra reigns,
deserts, bog-holes, acid rain.
Thus you needn't send to know
which rake made your world of woe.
Always me. It was me. It was me.
* I always bow to Pope in matters poetic and the Pope in matters spiritual, moral and liturgical.
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!
