Tag: baltimore

on colgate creek

i met paul on the double track racer
sitting together
tick
tick
tick
tick
up so slow
to the apex
moonlight on water
water all below
free we fly
side by side
down in gravitys waterfall
faster than the other track.

i sail with the merchant marine
paul keeps order in a counting house
and covers the waterfront when i am at sea.
have the
wars and votes and villas and what.

not notorius ribald wild
we walk together in riverview
a band plays
eubie and noble and un maestro italiano
we are together on boardwalk benches
family

industrial creek at sunrise
(in 1890 riverview park, the first of half a dozen local amusement parks, opened for whites on point breeze on the shores of colgate creek and the patapsco, south of what is now broening highway—it closed in 1929—gwynn oak was the last to close, in 1973)

sunset path

perhaps
over the next crest
in another dell
around the hedge end
we will find ourselves together
speaking of pain and sweat and hunger and michelangelo
in a human register
next steps falling natural
as we plan our survival
alone cojoined

footpath at sunrise
(sunset path, connecting hillside and club roads, is one of many footpaths in roland park, which was developed by the roland park company starting in 1891, the first of several developments exclusively for white christians—a policy the company never altered before dissolving in 1959)

la aventura de cuba y maryland

in tropical light
the white
man
rode the burrow
from santiago hacia las sierra maestra
sobre el rio juragua
robo
hierro duro
de la tierra esponjos

on the semitropical marsh
tons of cold air exploded tons of molten iron
iron and carbon separating and rejoining
with blistered hands
charred faces
mangled arms
fractured skulls
into smooth hard slick steel

y en la selva humeda
on the broken tarmac
ruins
resignation
religion
immitation

brownfields at sunrise
(after buying mineral rights to ore deposits in cuba 1882, the pennsylvania steel company bought sparrows point in 1887 and started producing steel there in 1889)

once and future egalitarianism

dividing and conquering
secures meat when there is prey
opportunity when there is insecurity
obsolete technology applied with brute force
fission uncontrolled, with limited fuel.
swirling in patriological event horizon
we reset the physics
or disappear

hospital at sunrise
(johns hopkins hospital opened on broadway street in 1889, aggressively applying science to medicine—followed by the opening of its companion medical school in 1893 as a result of funds raised and provided by mary elizabeth garrett, who demanded equal access to the school for women)

spaceships

sunwarmed
pink white yellow red orchidmesmerized
orange tea rose thymeinfused
smooth velvet pricklytouched
grovequiet
i am transported
to another place in time
only here and now

conservatory at sunrise
(howard peters rawlings conservatory and botanic gardens of baltimore, opened as the druid hill conservatory in 1888, thrives in druid hill park—unlike conservatories installed in carroll, clifton, and patterson parks and later demolished)

donations as investments

grains of wet alkaline aluminum iron magnesium
separately suspended and adrift
settling in bonded tetrahedral and octahedral sheets
attapulgite beidellite dickite halloysite illite kaolinite
montmorillonite nacrite nontronite saponite smectite sepiolite
layering in soils
plastic
molded tablets bricks tiles cups pots urns
distinct
sintered ceramic earthen porcelain stone
composite

asylum at sunrise
(in 1876 william rayner led the dedication of the hebrew orphan asylum’s new building on ashburton and rayner streets)

pretty boy to loch raven

brook brown and rainbow trout bass and carp
rise shimmering to hatches in deep pools riffles and fast flows
of mayflies caddisflies midges stoneflies
nymphs pupa duns spinners
to grasshoppers beetles ants cicadas crickets inchworms moths
poor fliers swarms
shrimp scuds sowbugs crayfish
leeches
minnows bullheads sculpins
snails craneflies dragonflies damselflies
in eleven cubic feet per second of coldwater
through fields of corn and wheat
cathedrals of eastern hardwood and deposits of salt petre
tasters of our royal cup

lake montebello at sunrise
(in 1881 the city began consuming water from the gunpowder reserved at loch raven supplied to lake montebello on hillen and thirty-third streets)

rapacioutrons

in every atom
of metal in rails ships machines wheels
brick stone in streets walls foundations
wood in chairs beds tables coffins
food
polluted air
treated water
with quarks letpons bosons
interacts a greed hate fear particle
emitting waves in uncertain half-life

old streetcar at sunrise
(baltimore trolleys were desegregated in 1871 as result of a suit filed by john fields—seventy-eight years before rosa parks protested segregated buses)