blessed waters sprinkle the foundation
proprietors rejoice with bountiful grain
our star rises and goes down
as days of trouble continue
our atomic souls disperse with every breath
into the living water and fire
safe.
as if there were true religion
saved from fire
a dome with promenades
harbor views
the capital for trades customs
banking city government
celebrations symposia
anguish for mr lincoln
capitalists are forever oppressed and free.
and they know it
bursting thunderbolts
throb the heads
of wandering few in sunny streets
silent as night,
fearing vomit black like coffee grounds
hiccup hiccup hiccup hiccup hiccup hiccup
aching eyes red turning yellow
sweated skin dried and chill
ears and nose bleeding
stupor delirium deranged sense of return to health
doctors letting blood and dosing mercury
cart rides to hospitals where insane might wail and call.
business stagnates and banks oppress
picking, carding, drawing, roving, spinning,
dressing, warping
at the speed of the falls and allegheny steam.
weaving webs across oceans
an idyll
from the chattolanee dome of billion year old gneiss
cutting into half billion year old marble
through ghosts of volcanoes and coastal alluvium
to the estuary marsh,
blue veins in a breast gathering
dipping pond and deep and slaughterhouse and moores
rowland and towson and western
cold spring,
raccoon king fisher possum heron bear woodpecker
fox owl deer hawk bobcat parakeet beaver crane,
swimming holes and fishing spots and baptisms
fords and foot bridges and races.
a night terror
persecuted churning bridges walls
roiling horses cattle pigs carts carriages
floating furniture barrels timber humans.
an essence
what we will
eighty bushels per hour
no hands oliver evans system
superfine flour.
the millers weren’t yet alarmed.
certain individuals cornered coal
from bowleys wharf
a whoosh of steam and shaft and water churning
the first of five million pulses
chugging in the rhythm and patience of pistons
from patapsco to susquehanna to elk to sassafras
to chester to miles to choptank to honga
to nanticoke to wicomoco to pocomoke to james
to york to plankatank to rappahannock to yacomoco
to potomac to patuxent to severn to magothy
five generations of machine and human
amalgamating anthroestuary into analog.
relatively innocent in plying the water
sunrise and morning
midday and afternoon
evening and sunset
through the hours of darkness.
polished steamboats once emanating from the patapsco
in tide-like rhythm
there could be robotic mastodons
roaming the city at night by gaslight
eating litter and defecating art.
but our wealth is too employed
for the genius all around.
cimon starves on holiday street
from the state of war
pride and destiny.
one million dollars for freed slaves
genocide for tenskwatawa and tecumseh
