Author: hinzadw

aint it truth

short life shorter youth no other
chew mealy apples chased with gin
phones ringless in mud
begging for moments
haters lovers cash and carry
your innerfish sauteed in streamingsun and flowers
swallow wideyed at ringing bells
someone step out of rainbow
rocking
it could be you

pennsylvania at upton at sunrise
(private thomas broadus was murdered by officer edward bender in 1942 on pennsylvania avenue after a louis armstrong show–2,000 people later marched to annapolis to protest racist police brutality)

professor shitwater

me thy sanitizer
put shit in thy harbor
me thy onedollarman
put ironsulfur in thy lungs
me thy envirosultant
put cyanibenzene in thy cells
very few harbors in the world are clean
yup its raining dollars
my purse is around here somewhere

brownfields at sunrise
(abel wolman propped up industrial polluters with pseudoscience and shared greed, earning more than the city from his 1940 scheme to sell lightly-treated city sewage to bethlehem steel for industrial use and subsequent dumping into the patapsco—harbor area groundwater had already been depleted and polluted)

honor of selection

common standard
achievement housing health wellbeing
decent living
pleasing and worthy
for up and coming
substandardly housed people in need
carefully selected mainly family
in doomed wasteful toxic industry of allocation
more difficult than providing for all

affordable housing at sunrise
(poe homes affordable housing opened in 1940 on lexington and freemont streets with 298 of 1500 applicants delighted to have a basic human right fulfilled)

pinned duck balling

clipper captains roll shot
to divers rigging-strung overbow.
muggsy uncle robbie delbert frock
transform iron foul flesh
into echoing cedar
smooth bright polished wax
and then
a most modern bowlery
smallball sanctuary

duckpins at sunrise
(louis shecter opened a 100-lane bowling alley on charles street south of lafayette in 1937)

checkerboard crew

paddy on atlantic highway
tearing through gale ice and rain
bells ringing
stars bearing
course possessed
seas spitting whiskey breath
art of scars gold of brass
love my brother seaman
or kiss my fucking ass

harbor watch at sunrise
(in 1937 paddy whalen and others who would establish the integrated national maritime union marched on washington dc to secure the right to organize—the national maritime union and the predecessor seamen’s defense committee in the city worked out of 702 eastern avenue)

one table

infinite mass
measured in a few test tubes
stuffed into some old fruit jars
for days
years
numbered
dense superheated
monarchs spreading through mountains valleys
supernovae

former law school at sunrise
(in 1935 donald murray successfully challenged the racist admissions policy
of the university of maryland law school, then located at redwood and greene streets)

always going somewhere

soldiers rode with sendeh
to hills above the city
“sendeh leave with your auto and turban and medicine
we know it’s you and won’t be tricked”
sendeh smiled as he began to drive away
“soldiers i have already tricked you
with your own medicine.
now wrap your beautiful turbans,
mine is fitted for the highway”

storefronts at sunrise
(during a brief residence in 1933 and 1934, kiowa costonie instigated and helped organize a buy where you can work campaign focusing on racist businesses along pennsylvania avenue)