Best Poems About / On CHICAGO
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Tough Streets Of Chicago
Tough streets of Chicago, you made me who I am.
Tough streets of Chicago, for me you had a plan.
You forced me to observe, what kids my age did not.
You taught me to look and see, always looking for a plot.
You taught me to react, and kept me on my toes.
You taught me to examine, the actions of my foes.
You forced me to react, in situations dire.
You made sure I would function, when I came under fire.
You made sure I was tough, made sure I'd understand,
the skills that I would need, when I joined uncle Sam.
Tough streets of Chicago, I almost went insane.
Tough streets of Chicago, you caused me so much pain.
You made me grow up fast, always dodging death.
You made me run from danger, could hardly catch my breath.
You took most of my friends, why, I'll never understand.
You made it possible to count, all my friends on one hand.
You took them in their teens, you took them very young.
You took them way before, to live they had begun.
Tough streets of Chicago, my tour is almost up.
Tough streets of Chicago, with your gangster posting up.
Tough streets of Chicago, can't get you off my mind.
Tough streets of Chicago, I miss those streets of mine.
Tough streets of Chicago...............................
rico avila
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2.
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For Selma
In places like
Selma, Alabama,
Kids say,
In places like
Chicago and New York...
In places like
Chicago and New York
Kids say,
In places like
London and Paris...
In places like
London and Paris
Kids say,
In places like
Chicago and New York...
Langston Hughes
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3.
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Will I Go To Bed With You
Will I?
I dunno, I might like you enough
in Chicago
enough to go to bed with you
yes, maybe Chicago in the fall
but come to think of it, sorry, no
not even in Chicago, not even in the fall
But perhaps, maybe in Vienna
yes, i'm certain of it now
Definitely in Vienna
yes, in Vienna in the spring,
I would go to bed with you
But Then
it isn't spring, we aren't in Vienna
so No
Cin Sweet Fields
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4.
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Finding Chicago
I wanted to write poetry like Carl Sandburg.
I wanted to write about big cities and small towns,
about open prairies and rivers in the sky.
I wanted to write about the people:
plumbers, politicians, poets,
but Id never been east of Tucson.
So I quit my dead end job,
closed out my savings account, all 600 dollars,
and went to Chicago in search of a poem.
ChicagoCity of the Big Shoulders, wrote Sandburg.
But I couldnt find it.
I found Chicago falling down around an old black man
leaning on his battered bass case, the way you lean
on a friend when youre in need. And Thomas Jefferson
Brown was a man in need, shoulders sagging under
the weight of six decades of back alley blues bars
and his thirst for blended whiskey.
ChicagoPlayer with Railroads and the Nations Freight Handler,
wrote Sandburg.
But I couldnt find it.
I found Chicago in a rusted heap of railroad cars, twisted
tracks and 55 gallon drums where bums built their fires.
Factories and warehouses empty, workers sitting in nearby
bars drinking beer, expecting checks at the end of the week.
ChicagoStormy, husky, brawling, wrote Sandburg.
But I couldnt find it.
I found Chicago shimmering in the shadows of towering
concrete, steel and glass along 32nd Street, poets reading
in bookstores and coffee houses, children marching
to museums, women with slim hips in black silk gowns,
men in tuxedos and Italian shoes, dressed for the theater.
I wanted to write poetry like Sandburg.
But I couldnt find his Chicago.
Clifton King
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