3556. ALL PASSES : ART ALONE ENDURES

ALL PASSES : 

ART ALONE ENDURES

Only by knowing what all that means will

anything be brought to the fore : those bridge

struts, the car park, the fire, all those white

buildings in today's Jackson Park. Chicago 

has destroyed by vandals and itself the

remnants, whatever was sensibly left, of

the Columbian Exposition's 'White City'

of 1893. Floyd Dell and his sister Margery,

the rough-time zumos of all this anterior

space, can only sit back in wonder.

Now, we are left alone in this wind-vapid,

sexless city to repeat again what once

over the doorway read: 'All Passes - 

ART alone endures.'

-

Phil told me to 'watch out for the

full moon.' So I did. For two days,

at five a.m. it sank, still full, at the

western horizon  -  landing, it seemed, 

on the roadway's distant end like a

big pat of winsome butter melting down.

And then it grew light out. And then

nothing happened at all. So?

-

I bought a coffee with quarters and dimes.

Really. Really. That was all it was worth.