Your New Depression

Your New Depression

an old
depression
one that
waged
embattered waves
on Babylon.

Your color
local
calling the stratus
to its quick
challenging

the universe
to justify
its questions
trembling

the loins
of cobblers bakers cannibals
businessmen and confectionists.

Our earth
an electric
alphabet
and the tease

you
get out
of it
an orchestration
of letters
throbbing

Tesla vines pulled and
cut and knotted
sloppily to form
a web a painting a flowering forgiveness
ocellated

with drips
of blood
and other evidences of love

but your wiles
still only
at a pinfeather
your fingers
erect
resplendent
giddy.

Abandon Concern, All Ye Who Enter Here:

No worries! I'm back! Jeannine and I have been settling in to our new digs on the North Side (Edgewater, for those of you interested and learned of Chicago neighborhoods) and trying not to spend any money, as neither of us have any jobs, yet. We both have leads, me a promising "your CV is a strong one, I hope to set up an interview soon" and Jeannine actually has an interview in August. But as of right now, we have enough to skim through next month, and that's it. But I am confident we will not perish. Some things that have happened in the city that make me happy:

1. I really love public transit. I know I'm seen as eccentric at best, deranged and socially mislead at worst for that comment, but it's true. I'm a big fan of sitting on the red line, listening to some Buddhist podcast, and looking at all the shops and sights along the way. I'm also a big fan of riding the express bus down Lake Shore Drive early Sunday morning: not many people are out and the lake is beautiful and it makes me feel good.

2. We were at a coffee shop a week ago and a pretty lady walked by the window and smiled at me.

3. Our apartment is big enough and affordable and has a courtyard. The windowsills are big enough for our cats to lounge on.

4. Our friends here have been really great: helping us move in in record time, inviting us for dinner and being willing to come here to hang out because we don't have any money to blow on entertainment. Thanks guys, it means a lot to us.


I'm not going to spend too much time going on about my trouble getting adjusted here: it centers around a new environment, no job, no routine. I am a creature of habit and change is hard for me, but I think I'm doing the best I can. Come fall, when I have a job and the leaves are changing and there's that great bite in the air I will be happy and not nearly as anxious as I am now. It's hard not to have the warm bosom of academia to nestle into after 6 years of its reassuring poverty. But once I get a teaching job, I'll be back!

Oh, and if you've made it this far, I have a poem in the new issue of Alba. Go check it out.

Over and out.