Little Brother

My little brother Peter is a slam poet, and he's done fairly well for himself.  Last year he won the coach's award for "Best Persona Poem" at CUPSI - a national college slam poetry competition.  As such, he's always had a better sense of place in his writing than I have - I have a journalistic background, and always try to get to the point and tend to skip description.  So, for this class, he can help serve as a resource and example for me - even though he's younger than me. 

 . . . . I'm never going to hear the end of this.

Here's a quick example of a poem (in early draft form) in which I believe my brother effectively evoked a sense of place - in this case the city of Chicago:

Terra Cotta

In the brightest night of a city summer,
I will find you in a deserted park
playing with politically renamed crayons.
Your heartbeat will speed up and form a
symphony played on snapped rubber bands,
quiet as hope beyond hope, the child
rooting for a losing team without
loyalty, just the knowledge that
this is what makes her home work.

You might see me sitting on some bench,
content in thinking that you won't fall
if I can see you from here,
and we will both act like you haven't noticed me.
My arms like well-worn jeans, I will provide
every comfort you are proud to have earned
but cannot take outside.

When you leave, I won't follow you, but
we will find ourselves in the same location,
buying selective nostalgia at a corner store as we
thirst for brands not manufactured this millennium.
The air will be sticky, but cool, burning
with the scent of street food and fresh fluorescents.
We will step inside to avoid mosquitoes.

Absent-minded, I will mouth the words of an old song,
and just as you catch the tune, a drunk
philosopher will wander past, and we will surrender.
We will see ourselves in terra cotta pots, overflowing with
fertile soil, held in the uncertain gloved fingers of
someone caring more than they're being paid to—
there is too much life in here not to break open
and take a more suitable vessel. 

The violet streaks of atmosphere above us
will be flaked and holy, like an old
chapel ceiling, and we won't think about how
we built it from the pollution of the lives we've
fought to escape into, away from the distant
ring of amber from a forgotten homeland.
We will be an oasis of silence.

This is exactly how it will have to be,
and how it will not, and how we will always
dream of it, every sweet-toothed set of
dress clothes tossed on to replace overalls
clinging to the dresser like urban geckos on glass.

I will walk, chin-up, through the unfamiliar buildings,
because my upbringing teaches me that the
slope-shouldered high rises with ruffled aluminum dresses
are made to sway with earthquakes like slow-dancers,
not to camouflage the hollow of caverns above storefront level.
I do not fear their beauty the way you do.
Chicago boy, I know it too well.

I will be my city's lake—a landlocked watershed,
the Midwest pouring into me so I can drain it
into the earth, slow, the way I leave it behind.
You will be your ocean, throwing yourself into the sky
and landing wherever it carries you. Our waters can never mix.

Instead, you will hold your ear to the ground and
invite me to join you in its sediments, caked in place.
I will listen carefully to terra cotta, baked earth,
hearing how it was sculpted to hold us together for
this single, soon-to-be-outgrown moment.

I will see your silhouette on the store’s glazed window,
arching backwards as you crack your spine,
and I will find this more perfect than anything.