Christine Jordan
Christine Jordan started life as a dancer, discovered runway modeling and writing poetry at about the same time, fulfilled her dream of being a choreographer as a dance professor at CSULA, landed in landscape design, and then came back around to performing her own writing from 2009 to the present. She has performed her solo shows and duo work with Story Chicks since 2013, combining her skills of choreography, prop and costume design, storytelling, and poetry and memoir writing with some success. She currently works with the LA County and LA Public Library systems performing her written recollections for adults, families and children, sharing excerpts from such ‘classics’ as Food for Thought, and Starstrucknotes on a country childhood. She is currently developing Model Behavior, her take on life as a high fashion runway model in the 1980’s, mining the humour of haute couture with a license to dazzle all while adroitly enacting her hair-raising true, vintage, fashion tales!
Christine Jordan started life as a dancer, discovered runway modeling and writing poetry at about the same time, fulfilled her dream of being a choreographer as a dance professor at CSULA, landed in landscape design, and then came back around to performing her own writing from 2009 to the present. She has performed her solo shows and duo work with Story Chicks since 2013, combining her skills of choreography, prop and costume design, storytelling, and poetry and memoir writing with some success. She currently works with the LA County and LA Public Library systems performing her written recollections for adults, families and children, sharing excerpts from such ‘classics’ as Food for Thought, and Starstrucknotes on a country childhood. She is currently developing Model Behavior, her take on life as a high fashion runway model in the 1980’s, mining the humour of haute couture with a license to dazzle all while adroitly enacting her hair-raising true, vintage, fashion tales!
RIVER DOG DAY NIGHT
Roustabouts. Marquees.
From square tents
to folding chairs on wheels,
Red and Yellow milk crates,
tough plastic, tougher boots.
One truck like a box on wheels
for the folded Farmer’s Market.
Duplicate wooden tables, but
not tables until unshaped long boards
rest on mostly Red milk crates. But
no milk in sight, the other tents sell
all that aged and hardened cheesy product.
This is the produce pod with
giant radishes, the miniature turnips
like golf balls , the thistle greens
of Rapini, Dino Kale, Kurly Kale.
This is a game, a circus, a movie on location
set up to serve the film crew, this green grocer
crew with the precision of a ballet troupe,
tumblers, lumberjacks, Commedia del Arte
from the back of a wagon, to sling, ring up,
stack, stash, unstack leafy green fluff
atop handfuls of the more dainty of the
orange & buff carrots, dangling thn tips.
When orange can be a pumpkin or
a delicata after Halloween treat.
Meals under tents, on wheels,
the cold air of Berkeley snapping
cilantro-scented drifts of Market Day.
This crew earning their Personhood
by degrees, oh about 40o this night,
last stop on the Midway of
homegrown, just-picked, baked, stewed
oh that Persimmon mobile!
When orange is an acrid fruit.
See the choreography of shapes
stacked upwards and sideways
to the ceiling, all but the food,
The fruit, the fistfulls of dusty
red beets, real favorites. Last into
the truck the ice chests the color
of snow, the feel of water, no space
wasted between Rivers and howling
Dogs, night to day to night again.
This night in Winter five days
from what what is called Christmas
it is cold, but just cold enough
to bundle up just enough to exchange
dollars for your next salad,
but not too bundled up to keep
the sales crew, the agile acrobats
the Roustabouts from finishing
with a flourish and a circular
Wolf Howl, hear it, sweet, natural, honest.
Well done, good and faithful traveler.
Roustabouts. Marquees.
From square tents
to folding chairs on wheels,
Red and Yellow milk crates,
tough plastic, tougher boots.
One truck like a box on wheels
for the folded Farmer’s Market.
Duplicate wooden tables, but
not tables until unshaped long boards
rest on mostly Red milk crates. But
no milk in sight, the other tents sell
all that aged and hardened cheesy product.
This is the produce pod with
giant radishes, the miniature turnips
like golf balls , the thistle greens
of Rapini, Dino Kale, Kurly Kale.
This is a game, a circus, a movie on location
set up to serve the film crew, this green grocer
crew with the precision of a ballet troupe,
tumblers, lumberjacks, Commedia del Arte
from the back of a wagon, to sling, ring up,
stack, stash, unstack leafy green fluff
atop handfuls of the more dainty of the
orange & buff carrots, dangling thn tips.
When orange can be a pumpkin or
a delicata after Halloween treat.
Meals under tents, on wheels,
the cold air of Berkeley snapping
cilantro-scented drifts of Market Day.
This crew earning their Personhood
by degrees, oh about 40o this night,
last stop on the Midway of
homegrown, just-picked, baked, stewed
oh that Persimmon mobile!
When orange is an acrid fruit.
See the choreography of shapes
stacked upwards and sideways
to the ceiling, all but the food,
The fruit, the fistfulls of dusty
red beets, real favorites. Last into
the truck the ice chests the color
of snow, the feel of water, no space
wasted between Rivers and howling
Dogs, night to day to night again.
This night in Winter five days
from what what is called Christmas
it is cold, but just cold enough
to bundle up just enough to exchange
dollars for your next salad,
but not too bundled up to keep
the sales crew, the agile acrobats
the Roustabouts from finishing
with a flourish and a circular
Wolf Howl, hear it, sweet, natural, honest.
Well done, good and faithful traveler.
© 2024 Christine Jordan
Christine Jordan was a Featured Poet at the December 2024 Second Sunday Poetry Series
Christine Jordan was a Featured Poet at the December 2024 Second Sunday Poetry Series