Carrollton, Illinois county courthouse in Square.
Hometown Poems by J.Macon King
King grew up in Carrollton, Illinois before calling first Santa Monica, San Francisco, and Mill Valley home. He depicted all four in his novelized-memoir, Circus of the Sun.* One phase of his poetry was “deconstructed” (his term) from that book.
This first poem was written to commemorate King’s hometown Carrollton High School reunion, old friends, and the Square. Debuted at Copperfield’s Books, Novato, CA “Words Off Paper” event, 6/3/2018 titled as “Small Town Born.”
Round the Square
— J.Macon King
Hang out on The Town Square
because it’s always there
Driver window rolled down
even if it blows, frosted flaked snow
Heater on, getting a heat on, ya know?
We are small town born
See someone we like on The Square
be cool, give just a nod
or casual finger wave
Drive ’round The Square
Orbiting our capsules of steel
chrome and rubber wheels
Breaking trajectory to soar
over the back roads and roar
blacktop goo & skidding gravel
Drink sloe gin & PBR beer
avoiding skunks, ditches and deer
Look for cars we recognize
Back seats steamed with homecoming queens
Cindy Lou or Mary Lou or Any Who
just “love anyone you’re with”
HO-OONK if we don’t like the friggin’ guy
Pit Stop at Root Beer Stand
Hopin’— yes! We get cute carhop
On our window is clasped
dinky serving tray
everyone pretends to steal
and no one does
Except the glue sniffer
who also Drove off
with the Drive-in movie’s
stupid tinny speaker for his radio
Then we go-oo…
…Back to The Square. Ya’ know
we look down on one-track towns
without a Square
Apple knockers, cutters and
middle-of-nowheres
Back to The Square
looking, seeking, waiting
Where is She? She’s not there.
The One. Who doesn’t see
how much you care.
Officer Green “Bean” sees you, though
He and car idle on corner, smoking smokes
No action yet, on The Square
its own rhythm has The Square
Souped-up cars circle like Hawks
Drag race later we hope
Header pipes opened, in the darkness
a few miles east of town
Chris’s Camaro can even pop a wheelie!
Split, cruise to the cemetery
get high with my friends and ghosts
One stone’s name you recognize
Realizing that we too, may die
I wish I’d of boned her, Tom says,
Before she became bones.
You’re mad because you had.
Shut up, moron. Morbid, you say.
Sweet cheerleader so fine
until crushed against that
Great Northern Railroad Line
Back to cruise ’round the Square
Drive ’round The Square, Why?
you ask, red eyed,
‘Cause we can’t,
drive square The Round!
Huh? sez Tom and Ryan
but ponytail Beth, she giggles,
brushes her fingers to your thigh
Shhh, even though she’s Ry’s
Hang out on The Square
Small town born, Big city torn
So forlorn, Wishin’ you had been born
Away from all this soy
and god darn CORN
in Newyark or L.A.
or just up Chicago way
Hell, maybe find a girl
way out West, in San Francisco Bay
For now, all you have right here…
…is just one more year…
…to hang out on The Square
Tracks just behind King’s childhood home, First Street, Carrollton, IL. Photo: J.Macon King.
The following poem debuted at Mill Valley CA literary-famed Depot Bookstore and Café.
Summers of Love
— J.Macon King
San Francisco
The City’s ultraviolet spectrum beckoned dreamers
Free of restrictions, boundaries, repressions
Free of the past. Desirous for a piece
of free love.
For Lovers
she was perfect.
San Francisco.
The time-warping spectacle of ‘67
glowed for years
in new Summers of Love
Haight Ashbury
birthplace of Flower Power
where Peter Pans and Tinker Bells
preserved Neverland
as a vibrant mixture
creatives, hippies, seekers.
Golden Gate Park’s
green expanse stretched
from Haight Ashbury
to the endless Pacific…
Where the War was over
but peace never came.
The Seventies
Illusory halcyon daze
of San Francisco’s mad decade
The Season of the Witch.
We were — enticed
yet repelled by excessive drugs
anything-goes sexuality
charismatic radicals and cults
stirring our pot with their dark arts.
Sexual Alchemy
Gays boldly gentrified bars,
shops, cafes— entire neighborhoods
and created a mad
non-stop nocturnal culture. Yet…
Dr. Caligari’s
Somnambulant
would soon arouse
to lay waste to the weak of flesh
And to the weak of heart.
San Francisco
the musician, the artist, the poet…
and her Circus of an entourage.
We would play, rebound, light up, score!
Win a free game. Or tilt.
—Summers of Love was originally published in Deconstructed Poetry, 2018, “deconstructed” from King’s novel Circus of the Sun.
Issue with J.Macon King’s poem, “War Palace.”The original Haight Street Journal still in print.
The following poem debuted at Mill Valley Outdoor Art Club. “Literary Inspiration of Marin and San Francisco: Setting as Character” with “The Literary Latte” slide show by King. 9-19-2013.
City of St. Francis
“I’m just mad about jazz,” she says
Francine swivels her barstool
Jukebox jazz beats like a live thing
Tapping rhythm on my thigh
I order a glass of water
with ice
trying to stay cool
Francine teases one of my curls
“Jack, jazzy-snazzy San Francisco must seem a
Garden of Eden to you, being from Po-duuunk.”
She pronounces Podunk with the Southern drawl
Coasters confuse with Midwest accents
Francine motions to her friends
challenges a smile to me
“Tell us, Jack. What do you think of San Francisco?”
I think…
San Francisco?
I think…The City of Saint Francis,
this cool, foggy, breezy, chilly, hilly metropolis
Restless by the pulsing sea.
San Francisco…
Surrounded by saltwater embrace…
The Golden Gate—radiates her sun-kissed span,
Golden Gate Park—transcendent over shifting sand.
Foggy horns forlornly sighing, jangling cable car bells crying,
Cow Hollow, Bermuda Triangle singles opportunely trying
Over a HILL
Hot & cold running colors,
aromas, climates.
Climb!
Natives know… climbing hills
make San Francisco women’s legs
so curve-aceous
San Francisco, I think…
Twin peaks …p e e k i n g…
Palm-treed parks, green-knolled, square oases’
Seven hills a-laying, Islands of Alcatraz,
Treasure, and Yerba Buena floating
Crabs cocktailing, seals rocking
The Lady from Shaing Hai … Hai-ing
Maltese Falcons hiding
Writers and Poets HOWLing
Jacks, KEROUAC and LONDON CALLING
from vertiginous Hitchcockian streets
through Dark Passage alleyways
to Ladies of the night —
Minna, Natoma, Clara,
Clementina… and their Tenderloins…
Lipsticked enchanted Victorians
Pretty little made-up maidens all in a row…
…Francine places a hot hand to mine
presses a blood-red nail into my palm.
“Well, Jack?”
She curls her full lips
revealing perfect porcelain-white teeth
that glow invitingly, like the lights of
North Beach strip clubs
“Don’t be shy. I may bite but I won’t bark
Not very loud anyway.”
Men at the bar eye her, this leggy, mean,
Hill-Climbing Queen, Mistress of Mixed Signals
“Jack? What do you think?”
It’s my turn to smile
“I think…I LOVE this City.”
Lullaby for the Road in She minor (excerpt)
Route 66 is gone
bye bye gone
Yet The Road beckons
He says to his new lover
Road Trip to the Southwest
She— Young and Fresh and Happy
The Sweetness still upon her
making his damage
less apparent
Her little brown Mazda
loaded
1 radar detector
1 H.M.S. Thompson salt shaker
2 backpacks
2 binoculars to watch thru
front and back window glass
to foil fuzz as they
speeeed wheeeee
MPH-ing down long
lonesome highways
of desert, sand, rock, cactus
field and mountains
AZ New Mex no Tex Mex
Bogie’s Petrified Forrest
Martian Meteor Crater
Grand Canyon, White Sands
Tombstone
Follow old 66 all the way
where lonesome highway
and tired travelers disappear
like a river
into sand and sea
First a prayer before
statue Santa Monica
Saint of marbled mothers
He reveals to this girl
not yet a mother
his old haunts
figurative, literal, and dishonesties
Venice Beach swings
Hollywood & Red Vines
Glorious Gloria’s Sunset Boulevard
G. Observatory he performs as
James Dean in “Plato’s”
lead-filled death scene
What happens next?
Will she remain in love?
He does not know
He takes her to Nuart Theatre
for The Last Picture Show
where they clutch and cuddle
in the very back row
until
The End
JMK 3-6-25 (This poem was adapted from King’s longer “Lullaby for the Road in She minor.”)
* The poetic portrayal of 1979 San Francisco’s cultural, sexual and political maelstrom. Available from Amazon.
In the wake of his girlfriend leaving him, young musician Jack has sworn off women, yet the reforming bad boy cannot resist the incandescent, liberated artist Bretta and her creative entourage. The pair sense they have found their Masterpiece of Love—until the return of Bretta’s enigmatic friend unveils disturbing secrets.
“A modern revisioning of Hemingway’s classic The Sun Also Rises.” — KMG
“…an ambitious and poetic story of love and creativity. At times racy and poignant… King deftly includes details that bring the book’s characters and events to life.” —Pacific Sun.
“More than a love story, this is a portrait of the city of San Francisco… The prose leans towards the poetic, which results in gorgeous, Kerouac-ian vignettes…seeming like a movie played on fast forward…” Kirkus Reviews.
“A great, lyrical portrait of an era…a spot-on recreation about a great time of history…and I enjoyed the sheer trip of it. Beautifully observed writing—the emotions in the story are true and moments of life are rendered with clarity.” —Louis B. Jones, author of four New York Times Notable Books, including Ordinary Money and Particles and Luck.
“…sets forth a story-within-a-memoir so skillfully that you forget this is a work of fiction. …Captures the ups and downs of an intense relationship deftly. —Rick Dale, The Daily Beat.
Buy Circus of the Sun on Amazon $19.95.
