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Though your brother's bound and gagged
And they've chained him to a chair
Won't you please come to Chicago
Just to sing
In a land that's known as freedom
How can such a thing be fair
Won't you plaese come to Chicago
For the help we can bring
We can change the world -
Re-arrange the world
It's dying - to get better
Politicians sit yourself down,
There's nothing for you here
Won't you please come to Chicago
For a ride
Don't ask Jack to help you
Cause he'll turn the other ear
Won't you please come to Chicago
Or else join the other side
We can change the world -
Re-arrange the world
It's dying - if you believe in justice
It's dying - and if you believe in freedom
It's dying - let a man live it's own life
It's dying - rules and regulations, who needs them
Open up the door
Somehow people must be free
I hope the day comes soon
Won't you please come to Chicago
Show your face
From the bottom to the ocean
To the mountains of the moon
Won't you please come to Chicago
No one else can take your place
We can change the world -
Re-arrange the world
It's dying - if you believe in justice
It's dying - and if you believe in freedom
It's dying - let a man live it's own life
It's dying - rules and regulations, who needs them
Open up the door
We can change the world

Chicago - We can Change the World
by Graham Nash, 1968

The lyrics of Chicago - We can Change The World by Graham Nash refer to the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The Chicago Police stormed the Demonstrators with brutal force on orders from Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Many anti-Vietnam War demonstrators were arrested. Others were clubbed by cops in Grand Park. The Author was also in Grand Park at that time but managed to get out before the cops reached him.

Some of the lyrics refer to the Chicago Seven trial. The first line of the song refers to Bobby Seale, a black participent of the Demonstration and eighth member of the Chicago Seven group. He was gagged, tied to a chair and later removed from the trial at its early stage. Thus, the eight members of the Chicago Seven were Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines and Lee Weiner.

The Yippie Movement - Youth International Party was originally started in Chicago during the Chicago Seven trial. Visit the Yippie Museum in Greenwich Village, New York City.

The Chicago River
in downtown Chicago

Downtown, Chicago

Downtown, Chicago

Wrigley Building
on Michigan Avenue

IBM Building
and The Sears Tower

The Sears Tower

Arial view of
Standard Oil Building

Sandburg Village -
a residential complex

Gold Coast residents
on sundecks

Sunny weekend on
North Street beach

Panorama of Chicago

Chicago's lakeside

Navy Pear
in the Windy City

On a Chicago beach

Selected poems from
Chicago Poetry
by Adam Wojtanek
with photographs by the Author

The following collection of poetry was written, at a time when Jane Margaret Byrne was campaigning for Mayor of Chicago. She was elected that same year and became the first and to date only female Mayor of a major metropolitan city of the US. There was celebration in the air, gay parades, sound of music everywhere and lots of festivals throughout the city. Therefore, you will not find in these poems any reference to issues hippies were concerned with in the sixties. These poems were written as a tribute to the new, free and liberated spirit of Chicago in the late seventies.

Ambassador West on State Parkway. Photo by Adam Wojtanek, 1979.

Acknowledgements
I express my deepest gratitude to the Chicago Public Library Information Center staff and The Art Institute of Chicago for their help, resources and information needed for the final editing of these works.

Introduction
Perhaps the cocoonisation of modern man comes from North American Winters in such high tech centers as Chicago. The most reminiscent Winters for Chicagoans are probably those with blizzards. And it was during such a Chicago blizzard in 1979 that I was inspired to write "Chicago Freeze", a collection of short poems. It was also written at a time when hardly anyone was writing poetry about my hometown. These poems may seem a bit out of date today and in need of some updating because the Windy City has changed much since then. Still, I'd like to share them with you here hoping that they could take you back to those happier days for just a while. So, welcome to my time machine. I hope you will enjoy the ride.

The American Poetry Association 1982 (Santa Cruz, California) published a poem from this collection in American Poetry Anthology, 1982

O, Mother

O, Mother,
Great City,
blizzard stricken,
who rose
off your knees
rolled up
your sleeves,
and said:
"No!
You haven’t
beaten me yet,
snow!"


Unedited

The Sun sets
and marks a statement.
The Moon drops,
and punctuates a sentence.

A New day
begins a new paragraph.
And with each week
a page is written.

Every month
a chapter is finished.
And with every year
a volume added
to the series.

We page our books
with every decade,
and when we reach the end
we learn that we cannot edit.

Chicago Images

Water Tower survived the great fire
See it on the Magnificent Mile.
Walk the length of Astor Street
Popular with Chicago’s friends.
Tour the narrow streets of Old Town
And meet a hippie or an artist there.
Go to the Loop (the El tracks
that go around Chicago's downtown)
and drop in to the Art Institute
In the windy city of Chicago.

Tallest Buildings

There were days when
We climbed to the top of the Prudential,
That building was the tallest then.
Now its 601 feet
has been surpassed again and again.

After that came The Civic Center,
Today named after Mayor Daley.
The First National Plaza,
with its unique profile, came later,
And it took title of the Tallest fairly.

Next was the Sears Tower,
reaching a whapping 1,450 feet.
The second was Standard Oil.
And John Hancock was the third on the list;
thou, its antenna reaches 1,456 feet.

Dear Friend
Dedicated to Dennis G.

Why do people drift away
with each passing year.
Yesterday we were close,
today we’re nowhere near.
I’ve changed much
since those boyhood days.
Yet, those memories I touch
and cherish in many ways.
Baseball games on our street
and biking I remember well,
swimming in the park pool,
and golf at the Woods, too.
Friends from our block
I miss so much, you know.
So, Friend, if you read this,
please let me hear from you.

Rush and Oak

Oak Street Beach,
a triangular shaped
golden sandy shore
with concrete ditches,
is popular with bunnies
and many playboys.
Weekends, holidays
and week nights, too.
Pavements of Rush Street
lonesome tourists explore,
and so do Chicago's whores.
Oak and Rush rest by day
to awake at night for you.

Learn and Explore

Have you been to the Field Museum
or that of ethnic history?
Have you seen the Chicago Art Conservatory
or the Museum of Science and Industry?
How about the Museum of Contemporary Art,
or the Adler Planetarium?

Don’t forget the Lincoln Park Zoo
And the Shedd Aquarium.
Visit their halls
when you've got nothing to do.
Learn and explore
as you pass through.



Lake Shore Drive on the Gold Coast. View of North Street Beach.



April
Poem first published in American Poetry Association’s
Anthology of American Poetry, 1982.

Winter evenings
shared together,
in Old Town,
on Eugene Street,
by your fireplace
I recall.

It’s raining now.
February rain.
So mesmerizing
to look at
though the window
on Lake Shore Drive

b
		e
				l
						o
								w.

The sounds of burning wood
and our happy chatter
are just a few memories
of Winter evenings with you.

Magnificent Mile

Michigan Avenue is the Magnificent Mile. You’ll find on it the old, the new and those, who have not more then just a smile. Chicago’s Michigan Avenue is magnificent, and not an ordinary kind of mile.


The Chicago Freeze

It’s the freeze that makes us sneeze; have runny noses, and bronchitises. So let’s stay home, keep warm, and tell the blizzard to be gone.