Published by The Puddin’head Press
Stapled Chapbook, 27 pages
5.5 x 8.5 inches, 2005
$6.00
Chicago Phoenix is a collection of poems by one of Chicago’s most dynamic and best loved poets, Cathleen Schandelmeier. She is well known for founding the popular “Beach Poets” readings on Chicago’s lakefront. In this new book of poems written to commemorate the Great Chicago Fire, she departs from her usual style to give us a quieter, more reflective side of her work. She shows that we are influenced by the history of where we live and where we are from by combining poems of Chicago history with poems of living in the city today.
About Cathleen Schandelmeier
Cathleen Schandelmeier is best known as the founder of the “Beach Poet” series at
Loyola Beach. Her books of poetry include: Chicago Phoenix, Tattoo Screams of Love,
Scream and I’ll Believe You, and Suck on My Toes and I’ll Follow You Anywhere. She has
been included in many anthologies including Stray Bullets and Step Into The Light. She
was named one the “100 Women Making A Difference” by Today’s Chicago Women Foundation.
She is an Artist in Residence with the Illinois Arts Council.
She is married to musician Peter Bartels and is the proud mother of three delightful children.
Contents
Chicago Phoenix
Working Person’s Beach
In the Railyards of Chicago
Red Light Reading
If Worry Were Water
Simply Human
Chicago Intens-City
Confessions Of A Chicago Time Traveler
Spinning Wool
Chicago’s Soul Strut
Why I Don’t Live In Bucktown Anymore
Chicago Wabanos
Cotton Batting Words
Chicago’s Baptism
Baptism By Fire
Feeling Fine In ’29
Mother Of Chicago
Chicago Hawaiian
Blonde Chicago Inferno
Sample Poems
IN THE TRAIN YARDS OF CHICAGO
Survivor of Normandy’s blood-soaked beaches
My uncle Ed had a little trouble hearing due to World War II
Got jumpy from loud noises
But returned home intact
Arms legs fingers toes
Baby blues, turned up nose
Handsome Irishman
Loved by Elsie
Wife and mother of his two:
Fay and Donald
Who shared his baby blues
Railroad job: union man
Back to work after war
When he left for work that morning,
After a simple kiss “Good-bye darlin'”
Sandwich in bag
Coffee thermos
“I’ve been workin’ on the.!”
he ought to have known when Jimmy the Engineer
offered him a nip of whiskey for his coffee
that chilly spring morn.
He climbed up the side car to tighten up a hinge when
Jimmy – drunk – hit the rails hard – then the brakes
Ed found himself
Wind knocked out of him
Flat on his back
Staring at the sky
The train car jerked
He tried to get out
But not before both legs
Were on one side of the train and he couldn’t see his knees
Only blood, the blood, the red juicy stuff of life
He bellowed not – so much in pain –
As in shock! Outrage! Shame!
All the bloodshed he’d witnessed
and survived
But not now!
“Jesus, Jimmy!” He cried,
“You cut off my legs! My God-damn legs, my legs.”
Riley scrambled to put his belt around one –
“Don’t worry Ed,
We’ll get you through this I just need another tourniquet.”
“Don’t shit me Riley! I know what’s what!
Now who’ll teach my son to be a man –
Tell my Elsie I love her! Jesus! I’m doing the hoochie coochie here
I can’t get warm! Warm me up, will ya? Just warm me up.”
Baby blues merged with the blue of the sky
My uncle Ed survived the beaches of Normandy
Only to bleed to death a year later
In the train yards of Chicago.
CONFESSIONS OF A CHICAGO TIME TRAVELER
My job is time travel 1870: Sweden
The land of the midnight sun where there are no jobs
Three years of failed crops-only empty stomachs
And a ticket to ride-to the other side of the great Atlantic
No Lindberg yet to fly we ride a ship
The children of the future join my museum journey
Vomit sea sickness-the cholera sick die
Others protect scant food
Dance in joy
When we, in Castle Gardens, NY arrive
Train travel
Choo choo to Chicago
Where we learn a language not our own
Tak s’mycket
Thank you very much
Clinging to the fibers
That connect us: blood body bone
And what exactly
We call home.
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