Lost Temple Bar
by PATRICK T. REARDON
Driving the grid east-west, north-south, Child of
the Century finds the Lost Temple Bar near the
geographic center of New Chicago, as noted on a
plaque on the east side facade of the former Zip
Novelty factory on Western.
Inside, on the wall, flood-lit, Blake’s pleasant and
green land with, in the distance, a small billboard
near tiny railroad tracks, advertising the Hospital of
Babies where One-Cent was born and the stone
goddess got along well with the habited virgins.
Child of the Century dances and leaps before the
pallet-pile altar during the open mic at Covenant
Ark Theatre on Humboldt. He is a man of ink.
He lives in the House of the Song of the Forenoon,
kisses three times the door post at each coming
and each going.
The procession of pilgrim festivals—carrying
cedarwood caskets and goldwood, measured
in bronze cubits and sacrifice altars—herky-jerks
past Lebanon Forest House, the tavern below
Lucy‘s Cortez Avenue apartment, kitty-corner
from the Nomadic Tabernacle, a folk venue
where GirlJane sang, early in her career, early
versions of “The Agenda of Kings” and “Psalm
for David,” featuring the line, “He did what was
displeasing.”
Solomon—Lucy‘s younger brother who found
freedom on the field, and never later or again—
follows the divinities of Forsyth, Argenta, and
Vienna, and follows foreign women and follows
the Facebook page of Nebuchadnezzar Sauganash,
writer of the book of outlaws.
Child of the Century keeps as a pet a kind of worm
or reptile, called a shamir, and feeds it Farmer’s Dog
insect chow—an extraordinary thing, it was,
used for slicing diamonds.
Patrick T. Reardon, a Chicago Tribune reporter from 1976 to 2009, is the author of seven poetry collections. His latest, Every Marred Thing: A Time in America, was the winner of the 2024 Faulkner-Wisdom Prize from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans (Lavender Ink). He is a six-time nominee in poetry for a Pushcart Prize. His poetry has appeared in America, RHINO, Commonweal, Long Poem, After Hours, Autumn Sky, Burningword Literary Journal, and other journals.