shuck shagged flies
found foul balls
brought good luck sleeping the first inning
minded the park
ate scraps
felt like a friend and seemed to know.
two light brown ears bent like bats wings
white face and chest
brown and white sox.
park home
time game
play team.
shucks panted smiling
never left
go see him there
war to knife to hilt
fraying
flaying pinking shearing
brawling
rolling
pistol shotting
hacking
out into streets
spreading cutting stickering fusing sorting stitching
eddies of fists and flailing
slowly unoppose
fuse
swirl together in a rising flood of flashing steel
to wash against
great floating capitals of mislaid granite
smiling grace and beauty heads not bent
shoved and clubbed
promenading tall in spring streets not green
grabbed and herded
swinging winds into dresses not billowed
corralled and branded
festival of fields and earth
sunlove unpaid
falling water engines
weirs races
wood iron turning
washed silted
removed
disassembled
inspected
idle
reassemble perpetual
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
just
laws made
taxes paid
more humane
more effective
wages salaries earned
votes cast
more informed
more moral
public served
children raised
influence made
knowledge gained
corruption reduced
influence weighed
work respected
viciousness wounded
because
trade laws enrich rich
commercial conspiracies menace from a twilight zone in nation-state
unreasonable campaign contributions corrupt
overissues of stocks and bonds suppress legitimate investment
favored banks exploit
wage earners rights regarded as restraints
special privilege interests absorb and waste natural resources
impure foods compromise health
imperialism experiments abandon values
special interests misuse delegated power usurp government
begin to begin to begin again
turrita marianne britannia
gleam of firstbeam
blood washing foul footsteps
conquer we must
awash in floodgates of wickedness and mischief
tea and toast and coffee
weeds along roads
taproots
through bedrock,
blame jesus.
or expect gated eternity.
or love without forgiveness
papa and i made a sèvolan
a bamboo krikèts back
joints turned round and hitched with digo thread
skin of silk from manmans maryaj sentiwon
special days it dansed in the van
in the sky with manman
we call it zwazo
papa said an òm fransè made a zwazo-sèvolan
named antionette like me
we went to see it on a very special day
piknik with taso bannann mamba and dous makos
and zwazo
we walked way up to druid hill
first we saw antionette over the vil
so small
we heard her like a marengwen
closer and bigger and bigger and byen fò
flying over our heads
prettier than zwazo
she circled like a lazy lò
then back over the vil
we are laughing still
in rèv i fly her to manman
