a red fox trots toward the rising sun
along the seam the b&o
weaves through west baltimore warehouses.
the seam a vein of steel
hauling endeavor into dreamland
on the edge of a park
Tag: anthropocene
surface tension
among the trumpeting morns
severe beauty from functional design
changes in the internal energy of a liquid that solidifies and cools
molten lead like freezing rain.
a body in the suns warmth
flying
father canton
stockjobbers request your presence
near the pilings in the sediment
to build load and unload.
until they wash out to sea
suspended plankton
warranted for any voyage or climate
most delicate animal substances for sea stores and inland consumption
served up at any moment
volunteer independent
rivals and factions
mechanical union friendship deptford liberty
federal independent vigilant new market
columbian first baltimore united fells point franklin
washington patapsco howard watchman lafayette
monumental pioneer western mount vernon
united.
woodframes and roaring flames
pellmell and terror
lighted windows and leather buckets and lanemen
white hatted officers axe hook and ladder men
sooty sweeps climbing to the sky.
street fights of children following engines home
hooting for their companies with fists sticks stones and missiles
brawling and letting blood.
fires fought and conquered with zeal and daring
resolve that however valuable as a fireman a member may be
if he is constitutionally turbulent and quarrelsome
it were better to dispense with his services
buried alive
an idyll
from the chattolanee dome of billion year old gneiss
cutting into half billion year old marble
through ghosts of volcanoes and coastal alluvium
to the estuary marsh,
blue veins in a breast gathering
dipping pond and deep and slaughterhouse and moores
rowland and towson and western
cold spring,
raccoon king fisher possum heron bear woodpecker
fox owl deer hawk bobcat parakeet beaver crane,
swimming holes and fishing spots and baptisms
fords and foot bridges and races.
a night terror
persecuted churning bridges walls
roiling horses cattle pigs carts carriages
floating furniture barrels timber humans.
an essence
what we will
corpus chesapeake
from bowleys wharf
a whoosh of steam and shaft and water churning
the first of five million pulses
chugging in the rhythm and patience of pistons
from patapsco to susquehanna to elk to sassafras
to chester to miles to choptank to honga
to nanticoke to wicomoco to pocomoke to james
to york to plankatank to rappahannock to yacomoco
to potomac to patuxent to severn to magothy
five generations of machine and human
amalgamating anthroestuary into analog.
relatively innocent in plying the water
sunrise and morning
midday and afternoon
evening and sunset
through the hours of darkness.
polished steamboats once emanating from the patapsco
in tide-like rhythm
eyes of water
springs bubble unseen
headwaters in time
to hundreds of billions of gallons from all over.
pumping through
charge bayonets
after battles won by hundreds for ensuing millions
panoramas from the green hills above town.
swept over by demi-tectonics
oration upon the moral and political evil of getting it wrong twice
we knew.
to deprive a person to rob their soul
to dwindle into insignificance to eternal infamy
apostates to principal
pursuing destruction propagating vice
rearing youth in habits of cruelty
base collective despotism in unison
citizens as tyrants ignorant of impunity
to be hurled amidst the elements of woe
why do we not step forward eternal will be the disgrace.
perhaps we are merely catalysts for the transfer of heat
from the core to the void.
genocide, enslavement
anthrocide
