Tag: racism

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)

quarantine

enforced
great change in the physical aspect of baltimore
isolation
was brought about by the removal of the buildings along saint paul
limit
cleared into a series of sunken gardens
infection
elaborate stairways
into lonely places

lonely place at sunrise
(in 1914 a thriving, predominantly black neighborhood around saint paul street between lexington and center streets was razed as mayor preston innovated baltimore apartheid)

waxed bronze

pause over
my appointment with violent death
cause over

sailors and sldiers at sunrise
(the union soldiers and sailors monument was sanctioned in 1906 and dedicated in druid hill park in 1910, roughly coinciding with three failed attempts to disenfranchise maryland african american voters—it was moved to wyman park near 29th and charles streets in 1959 out of the path of the jones falls expressway)

gift of a site

walking in hills and dells
hogs mill out of the orchard into bondage
toads rustle toward water barbaric
deer graze in circuits progressing
ravens encircle anticipating
sparrows forage in microcosm
cows linger about stables ignorant
sheep graze superstitious
a few hundred birds in song capable
weasels forerun
roosters confer
geese gather around opportunity
cats habituate each on its own
rats steal in order attention obedience discrimination and memory
ox and horse till usefully
falcons train on pigeons
snails rasp across tasty objects
flies light on still hands
and snakes measure air with tongue-craft
so join hands each a teacher farmer artisan
nonexempt in falling icy fangs

homewood at sunrise
(in 1902 the land for the johns hopkins homewood campus, as well as wyman park and the way between wyman park and druid hill park, was donated by eight people, including david carroll)

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)

not my maryland

despots filled the streets
cobbled with ignorance born from greed
bastard sons and daughters of mother hell
will snuggle in parlors with empty words and moldy swords
thirty thousand new suns could not wrest the nightmare of your torture
your hurled bricks pieces of iron and coal epithets a lunatic babble
as you writhe in self-forged chains beneath your hell bitch mother
puss oozing from your blistering flecked faces mountains streams
murderous premeditated with no soul to yield or defend
distant thunder soundless in the void
that could have been hearts beating with the earth

pratt over jones falls at sunrise
(in 1861 baltimore citizens started the killing in the civil war by attacking massachusetts soldiers who were on their way to washington and travelling west on pratt street making a railway transfer—a maryland native living in louisiana who was sympathetic to the murderers wrote a silly poem that is now the maryland state song http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/01glance/html/symbols/lyrics.html)