Soup Kitchen
After the blizzard
it was warm in the kitchen
where the angel-witch cooked.
All the survivors
crawled in from the avalanche:
the lost girls, bent heroines,
peacocks and choirboys,
pulled along by the wine
to canned soup and oranges,
looking for the revolution
that was always stillborn.
He was just another strategy
there in the churn
of dream-debris bobbing, plaintive
as old violins; scooped, angular,
scuffed but still thrumming.
His sorrows tempted me
but when I touched him
he growled
like a sore dog.
Finally the angel-witch
took him to Phoenix
and we were all stuck
with her snow and tomato soup.
March 2022
some nonsense for Shay's Word List #18:
Note: My favorite song of Cohen's is the first I ever heard, Suzanne, released in '67. It was a part of this time I chose to write about, in particular, the blizzard of 1967, which I spent marooned in my best friend's apartment with J.J Cale's , the Doors' and Cohen's music, and a crowd of assorted misfits.
Some notes on the actual event:
"The Chicago
blizzard of 1967 struck northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana on
January 26–27, 1967, with a record-setting 23 inches ..snow fall in
Chicago and its suburbs before the storm abated the next morning. As of January
2022, it remains the greatest snowfall in one storm in Chicago history..
The
snow fell continuously in Chicago and surrounding areas from 5:02 am on
Thursday, January 26 until 10:10 am Friday .. sources estimate [between] 20,000
- 50,000 cars and 800-1,100 buses [were]stranded...Gusts of 48 to 53
miles per hour..caused large snowdrifts..[and]..the blizzard closed both Midway Airport and O'Hare Airport.
Ten-foot drifts covered the runways at Midway. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley
ordered city workers to clear city streets around the clock..the city was virtually shut down and area schools were closed."~wikipedia
Images: Cars stranded at Oakwood entrance to Lakeshore Drive, manipulated, Fair Use
Volkswagon Beetle stuck in snowdrift at Stockton and Diversey, manipulated, Fair Use
Both photos © the Chicago Tribune historical photos, January, 1967
