waverly

sacked by kingstroops
wanton mischief pavement shattered
doors windows demolished
furniture fragments
family pictures ground tatters
fruit-trees down
fragments scattered around
shivered explosion shadows
they come upon leave us in extremitie
red moon through clouds where the dead shall be

shopping center at sunrise
(in 1951 the waverly redevelopment project razed blocks of integrated rowhouses to support aggressive segregationist policy, with help, either bungling or cynical, from the federal housing administration)

duly executed

bodies corporate perpetuating duration percentum
sheltering rent property public
dwelling not with standing
aggregating mutual covenants
whereof
witness
safety healthy morals

city hall dome at sunrise
(in 1949 over 2000 city residents railed at a city council meeting against unisolated public housing)

anthropomorphine

liberty in
losing using
ones own money in ones own way
or someones else notwatchings
finance unmediocre
money as light coursing
numbing strange selfsuffocatingabortion
accelerating phoenixcinders

stock exchange at sunrise
(the baltimore stock exchange, at 210 east redwood street, closed and merged with the philadelphia stock exchange, NASDAQ OMX PHLX, in 1949)

three ways

painful pillows hold my head in vice
sloshing radiators overheat bowels
words saidunsaid needle hurting space
in fetal blueskinned sluggish confusion
out to frostyclear dawnlight
moist easterlies
three softslowstepping laps
eutaw baltimore greene lombard
eutaw baltimore greene lombard
eutaw baltimore greene lombard
everabsssorbing cobalt blue
fizzzbuzzz
trainsss leaving sssouth

cobalt blue at sunrise
(the emerson bromo seltzer tower on lombard and eutaw streets was the tallest skyscraper in the city from 1911 to 1923)