rest next time

disconnected smallstreet
pigment pools punctured tears
sprinting stopping condemnation caucus
chimney sky-rockets rain mushroomthistle
tree arms temperfold
pollenpepper sneezes beat
seepingpipe molassess well
playlot furroweed
seawash lessening
faster walking risingreen souptide
kings poorman standing out of sight
summer days

small street at sunrise
(in 1964 vernon leopold was shot and killed in front of his mother’s house on parrish street by a policeman who had been drinking in a bar around the corner)

copitas

morning shadows breakfast
sun extinguishing electric street
smogashen dew briefsoothing
nothing despair nothing
slow anthrosuicide prevention
ringing phone
eggs runningintotoast
tableset edgeswiped
saucers sweeping in orbitspinning
blackcoffee whiteporcelain bread orangemarmalade
stay and drinkwithme
insomnia
because nothing rejoice
inour nohurry pleasantlighted cleancafe

charles and fayette at sunrise
(after continuing direct action in city restaurants that started at hoopers restaurant at charles and fayette streets in 1960, the maryland general assembly passed a law permitting the city and several other jurisdictions to bar segregation in public places in 1963)

skill and horsemanship

sea on land
flying horses galloping around
young crusaders battle mock enemies
ready and wielding
delight and survival in centrifugal force

former amusement park at sunrise
(after protests that started in 1955 and culminated in the trespassing arrest of hundreds of protesters, gwynn oak park, on gwynn oak avenue, desegregated in 1963)

castaways

shark gaping jaws four rows of teeth
expires slowly on deck
tail hatcheted oxygen seeping away
a messenger in viscera champagne blood commingled.
seek sailors foundered in cruelty
carry home a cargo of happiness

shopping center at sunrise
(after protests that started in 1955 and culminated in the trespassing and disorderly conduct arrest of hundreds of students who were jailed for three nights before the city government intervened, the northwood theater, on havenwood road between loch raven boulevard and hillen road, desegregated in 1963)

swimming pool age

riverside
area to flowing water
a time volume velocity
upstream momentum in density
fluid flowing streamline fashion
long ropes tie off
persons pulling
weight ground on feet
horizontal separation center of mass
red river
jatavious jamarcus takeitha litrelle ladairus latevin
walled water just waits
and we float away in moonlight

swimming pool at sunrise
(an “angry, ugly, hate-maddened mob” threatened neighbors who came to swim at riverside pool in 1962)

another day

members of port authority met
for the purpose of organizing at the governors office at ten light street.
but for frogman dwight from us virgin islands charm city was to die that day
from planted spybombs
to assassinate governor mayor commissioners capitalism
establish communo-fascist oligarchia nycjobbershippers
at the expense of our fair city.
thanks for superiorintelligence advancedwiretrapping.
uss saratoga steaming to guantanamo
detours quietly up the chesapeake
(secrecy more important than success)
seal team spotted by birdkill counting team—abort.
comes night of frogman do or we die slowly rusting without commerce
dwight come with us special orders
two days of darknesssilence
into the water from launch toward lazaretto
steady breaststrokes not a ripple sound reflection
treading an hour partying sailors meltaway
uponto shore minutebyminute movingnotmoving amphibianunseen
2:07 wet wooden pile
2:08 still pier shadows
2:09 sleeping drunk on pratt
2:10 refuse on lombard corner
2:11 barrels near redwood construction
2:12 boxes near freight elevator
2:13 soundless toes leaping fourtreads fourtreads fourtreads
2:14 spybombs noiselessly collected
2:15 elevator shaft repelling quiet nylon
2:16 darkdoorway
2:17 emptybustop
2:18 blackwall
2:19 nosplash nightbirds unmoving
good judgement professional standards
modernoverall
shippersport
promoted
frogman did

tower at sunrise
(the baltimore port authority met for the first time in 1956 at 10 light street and began centralized, regional management of port facilities in lieu of separate management by the b&o, western maryland, and pennsylvania railroads under city supervision—dwight may have resigned from the usn because racist shore patrol rolled and left to drown a drunk friend of his returning to ship from shore leave)

supervene

linger here dark embrace
take what love gives
pressed hands
welded
dyed
back and forth in golden shoes
dreams shadows

eutaw and fayette streets at sunrise
(performances at ford’s grand opera house on eutaw and fayette streets were picketed from 1947 until it desegregated in 1952—many artists and production companies boycotted the theater during that time)

community relations

any person aggrieved
discriminationsegregation
dwelling opportunity
familial person natural
orientation place public
covenant
population composed
care groups practice place
hardship social
arbitrary age chance equal
liberties
untold anxieties
permanent effects

city hall from gay and saratoga at sunrise
(the city council passed an equal employment ordinance in 1956)

some part of you down there

singing all over
deep rivers
no ways tired this far
day after day born
turning around you
in pleasure and grief
speak in red rising sun a few days more
fields of gold pure water
for never yes forever
bound to earth
explode in lightning

lyric at sunrise
(lyric music hall owners refused to have marian anderson perform there in 1953, but relented in 1954, to the joy of a sell-out audience)

blessing

shining
sunny plenty
magic circling
naked unafraid walking beauty
clamor crying morning
red is blood
ringing laughter

mondawmin mall at sunrise
(mondawmin mall, between gwynns falls parkway and tioga parkway and reisterstown road and monroe street, opened in 1956, with some stores serving only white customers)