April 2016 – Page 2 – sunrise in a small city

pardon my mob

traders and jobbers and lawyers and cronies
who speculate and siphon
such fellows are not my fellow citizens

calvert and lexington at sunrise — (in 1835 baltimore citizens protested fraud associated with the failure of the bank of maryland by destroying property of those responsible for the fraud)

our most sanguine expectations

a beautiful white villa in the glade on the hill
as symmetrical as mercantile interests and power
evaporates like conversations forgotten
and repeating

montebello at sunrise — (general samuel smith, of montebello near the alameda and 33rd streets, exercised power politics at the local, state, and national levels through the first four decades of the 19th century)

the most tricky scoundrels
with soaring trees and deep bogs
loam peat clay sand
animalia prokaryota
breathing
the slim skin.
we etch tattoo and seal
scratch bleach and scar
girdling
scattering salve
a whirling doctor
haunted by raspy echoing
that brings no rain
pero tal vez olor amoniaco

compton street at sunrise — (the fertilizer industry was pioneered in federal hill—the first shipment of guano from peru arrived in 1832)

maryland imperial

the board believe
the colonists are happy and contented and comfortable
removed from contact with the laboring population from europe
amalgamating the subjects of king freeman
indebted for the great blessing of christianity
the injurious and burdensome replaced by the white.
and still we let boards attempt to believe.
restore the wages

mount clare at sunrise — (the maryland state colonization society was incorporated in 1831, charles carroll was on the board)

613

whereas the scattered
exercise rights and customs of fathers
and regulate temporal concerns
fully immersed

bond and fleet at sunrise — (the first baltimore hebrew congregation began meeting on bond and fleet streets in 1830)

as byzantium

shall we each find a time and place
to dance on the waters
of the sea that surrounds us

youth fountain at sunrise — (in 1831 colonel eager’s heirs subdivided his estate and donated land for mount vernon place)

taxation without education

excluded from opportunities of respectability in humble confinement
from condescended illusions of independence.
a missed opportunity for assimilated cultural genocide

fayette street at sunrise — (the first public school, not available to african americans who supported it with taxes, opened on holliday and fayette streets in 1829)

with sense of public purpose

steel rhizomes patapsco to ontario
stems rise and spread flowering brick and pavement
woodberry blue mount bentley springs glen rock
trout run roaring branch cedar ledge pine valley
montour falls rock stream
some wither before blooming not sustained
energy from physics little understood

light rail at sunrise — (the cornerstone for the baltimore and susquehanna railroad, which would later become the northern centail railroad, was laid near north avenue in 1829)

318

blocks of dark banded gneiss
girdling in a jagged spiral
rising above the statue
absorbing sunlight
could be one of the plans he was waiting for others to lead

monument at sunrise — (the washington monument was completed in 1829)

transition spiral

spinning steel booms along
wayside forest rivers streams fields mountains rocks
vibrating in new harmony
prime movers roll like firing cannon
on ribbons and zig zags
superelevation comforts
so many wheels turning
overthrowing

roundhouse at sunrise — (the baltimore and ohio railroad began operating to ellicott city in 1830)

Month: April 2016