Month: September 2016

been ever since

turn on the faucet
rains here run to stormy sea
clouds walk by
streets whisper doomsday
towncity left alone
they dont come
blues about
hush now
dont quit me
long way to go

royal sunrse
(the douglass theater, later renamed the royal, opened in 1921 on pennsylvania avenue and lafayette street)

how far you go

leeward
to peas beans melons cantaloupes asparagus crabs oysters
orchards picnics
sick sailors immigrants dying contagious with mary
suburban mirage manguano cannery company town
baseball beer dancing burlesque
manufactury refinery petrolasphaltchemicalpool rails
gastank smokestack waste
liberty victory jumboizing containerizing
community clutching sandymuddyoiled rubbishroad
to fairfieldbrownfield
and beyond
to pleasant prospect adventure utopia
sweating river

brdge at sunrise
(in 1916 the hanover street bridge, now vietnam veterans memorial bridge, over the middle branch of the patapsco, replaced the long bridge between light street and fairfield)

chrysanthemum ruins

adele dreamed of an ancient city
white broken marble maroon crumbled brick
jumbled concrete bright yellow under a morning sun
she soared and circled slowly down
toward a windless world
eddies of dust spiraled undisturbed as voices
mostly gold streaked white purple red
heralds
journals
correspondents
news
she walked with an august gentleman
scattering seeds of autumn flowers blooming as they passed
“lord baltimore is american”
“my maryland”
turning around they stood in a sea
maroon touched with delicate gold

flower exchange at sunrise
(the baltimore florists exchange operated from 1906 to 1918 on franklin and saint paul streets)

precincts belts boroughs

carotid arteries reaching
into mind
onto face
move with moon
feed sun oxygen iron metalion
wash waste
oceanland
waterrock
planktonfungi
towncounty
harborfarm
portindustry
urbanrural
tidal rivers into cityorganic
through talltufted reeds
winds piping away

middle branch at sunrise
(in 1918 areas west and south of middle branch and around curtis bay, and immediately-surrounding suburbs west, north, and east were annexed in the interest of commerce: port control and size matters)

anubisghost

shuck shagged flies
found foul balls
brought good luck sleeping the first inning
minded the park
ate scraps
felt like a friend and seemed to know.
two light brown ears bent like bats wings
white face and chest
brown and white sox.
park home
time game
play team.
shucks panted smiling
never left
go see him there

electricity at sunrise
(established in 1916, the black sox played at westport park near annapolis road and clare street from 1917 to 1920)

styleplus

war to knife to hilt
fraying
flaying pinking shearing
brawling
rolling
pistol shotting
hacking
out into streets
spreading cutting stickering fusing sorting stitching
eddies of fists and flailing
slowly unoppose
fuse
swirl together in a rising flood of flashing steel
to wash against
great floating capitals of mislaid granite

clothing factory at sunrise
(struggles between united garment workers and amalgamated clothing workers unions erupted into a melee in the sonneborn clothing factory on pratt and paca streets in 1916)

proud dialects in rough house

smiling grace and beauty heads not bent
shoved and clubbed
promenading tall in spring streets not green
grabbed and herded
swinging winds into dresses not billowed
corralled and branded
festival of fields and earth
sunlove unpaid

clothing at sunrise
(in 1916 amalgamated clothing workers struck l. greif and brothers, operating on milton and ashland avenues)