The following can also be found in the book Chicago Stories 1997. Click here to learn more, and to download a free electronic copy.

He is a man
a man of the 60s
a child of the 40s
a child of the immigrants
the Germans
with dirt
black dirt
black Missouri dirt
under their fingernails
the large, coarse, gnarled hands of the lead-mining Germans
the Germans
the German wives
kneading these hands
under ice water
by the light of a harsh American moon
kneading the dough for their pumpkin pies
kneading this flesh
strong gnarled German Missouri flesh
back out to its straight and narrow form
He is a man
a man of the 60s
Lies in his room at night
dreams of Camelot
dreams of rockets to the moon
lies in his dorm room
dreams the pipe dream
of a life without gnarled flesh
of a life without pumpkin pies
Lies in his pipe dream of a dorm room
dreams of dorm rooms
dreams of skinny ties
dreams of women serving drinks in St. Louis
with bunny ears on their heads
and cotton balls on their ass
He dreams
He dreams
He dreams
this man of the 70s
dreams of
where it went wrong
Late for the cub scout meeting
‘cause the car broke down
and traffic was a mess
and John Kennedy died
and Robert Kennedy died
and Martin Luther King died
and Jimi Hendrix
and Janis Joplin
and Spiro Agnew
and Richard Nixon
and Vietnam, Vietnam,
Jesus Christ, how do you get to the little league game
in the middle of Vietnam
but he is a man
a man of the 70s
doing exactly what King Arthur told him
work hard
raise your children
own a home
buy on credit
drive a car
keep reaching for the stars
and never mind that King Arthur's dead
and never mind this nagging, fleeting, pulling, pushing feeling
that something is wrong
horribly wrong
because he is a man
he is a man of the 80s
The Jones's have bought a swimming pool
he's not going to get one
the Jones's have bought a satellite dish
he's not going to get one
this man
this man of the 80s
seems to be the only man in the entire kingdom
this fading, crumbling Camelot
who realizes
that something's wrong when you and your dad like the same president
that something's wrong when the paint rubs off your credit card
this man
is the only man
in this stinking, rotting, choking decline of the Reagan Empire
who seems to know
that the bottom's about to fall out
and then... it does
He is a man
a man of the 90s
built rocketships that went to the moon
for thirty five years
and in the blink of an eye
a snap of the finger
the rug of Camelot
is whipped out from under his feet
The Jones's have filed for bankruptcy
he's not going to get one
the Jones's have filed for divorce
he's not going to get one
his kids have a better resume than he does
his kids with the pierced
ear and
nose and
chest and
clit
his kids whining about their g-g-g-generation
X marks the spot
of where Camelot was
and is no more
but he keeps trudging
he keeps pushing
he keeps loving laughing losing and winning
because he is a man
he is a man
he
is
a
man.