Month: December 2016

oasis

thorny brambles chancewind swept
miles and miles of labyrinth
around pools seenandrumored
magic carpets flyingover
crash in tumblingscratchingskids
stopandfind the painachingsorryguiltymess
loudly contemplate
each footwoundpiercing step

administration building at sunrise
(baltimore polytechnic institute’s pre-engineering program was opened to 16 segregated students in 1952 after petitioning by the naacp and the urban league—poly was then at north avenue and calvert street)

waverly

sacked by kingstroops
wanton mischief pavement shattered
doors windows demolished
furniture fragments
family pictures ground tatters
fruit-trees down
fragments scattered around
shivered explosion shadows
they come upon leave us in extremitie
red moon through clouds where the dead shall be

shopping center at sunrise
(in 1951 the waverly redevelopment project razed blocks of integrated rowhouses to support aggressive segregationist policy, with help, either bungling or cynical, from the federal housing administration)

duly executed

bodies corporate perpetuating duration percentum
sheltering rent property public
dwelling not with standing
aggregating mutual covenants
whereof
witness
safety healthy morals

city hall dome at sunrise
(in 1949 over 2000 city residents railed at a city council meeting against unisolated public housing)

anthropomorphine

liberty in
losing using
ones own money in ones own way
or someones else notwatchings
finance unmediocre
money as light coursing
numbing strange selfsuffocatingabortion
accelerating phoenixcinders

stock exchange at sunrise
(the baltimore stock exchange, at 210 east redwood street, closed and merged with the philadelphia stock exchange, NASDAQ OMX PHLX, in 1949)

warfields

trip on bay line ship
every minute thru and thru
packet on ocean home
shallow water tumbling
teargas dancing

harbor from exeter and lancaster at sunrise
(in 1947 the president warfield left the harbor from near lancaster street heading for palestine via norfolk and france, and a rechristening as the exodus)

inharmonious undesign

unconstrained combustion
fuels illusorycompressed timespace
leaving seemingempty places
sortofnotreally littered
with concentrated purchases
stateless events
anthrofrenzy

shopping center at sunrise
(the edmonson village shopping center, the city’s first suburban mall, opened in 1947 on edmondson avenue)