Chicago: Leaving Storage Unit # 828 Periodical Blues…by Robert M. Katzman
by Robert M. Katzman © September 18, 2013
(Rewritten March 10, 2023)
*
Rented a gloomy 10 x 10 space
Since ’05 when the rent
Was $50 bucks a month
Fucking Recession
Ate my house
Thought there were
100 boxes, but…
*
Now $115.00
A month is too much
I gotta go
Fetch ‘em
Thirty miles one way
Discovered with horror
There were
200
Goddamn boxes!
Now what?
*
Some went to
My silent store
1,000 posters
Melted into the walls
Among my
30,000 existing posters
Who could tell the difference?
*
A few boxes
A couple dozen
went to my current
(very) little
House on the prairie
Shoehorned
‘em in Between
My Wife
My Daughter
and
The Dogs
*
Once some
Delectable aged
Former treasures
Ain’t no more
Split boxes
Broken hearts
Now
They’re sleeping
Within the Dumpster
*
I load in the morning
Bleary 6 am
Twenty boxes at a time
Unload at night
Seemingly now heavier
Same twenty boxes
Day after day
Stagger home
Fall down
Repeat
*
Last week
The 848 Slave
Woke up
Tripped in the dark
Over my grandkid’s
Wooden Rocking Horse
Hit my greying head
Cut my foot
God hates me
*
15 boxes to go
The heavy ones
Left for last
Tomorrow
Can my rusty old van
Take one more load?
Can my fragile spine
Like a Hebrew in Egypt
Lift the Bricks
One more time?
*
Ruler of the Universe
Why hast Thou forsaken me?
Beseeching the vast Black Sky
The Retail Poet
Closes his Store
Turns out the lights
Retires to anonymity
Collapses
Whatever
***