Category: community

polite explosion

was it new light
absent shadows
bold lines emerging contrast
absorbing and radiating strength
or universe in random beauty

brooklyn homes at sunrise
(marian johnson, and several other families, endured racist intimidation throughout 1967 integrating brooklyn homes in south baltimore, and endured)

blood writing

black and white orchid red clay
grey lichen textured canvass
green sword fern cooled brown lava
dappled seabird dropping shit
dharma brothers stone building
mister clean perfume war clerks
knife to tongue to pen to pray
worthy suffering plain peace

custom house at sunrise
(phillip Berrigan, tom lewis, david eberhardt, and james mengel poured their blood, cut with chicken blood, on six hundred draft files at the city central draft office in the custom house on gay street in 1967)

a friends witness

women walking with child
children laughing afraid dreaming
mothers in days slipping away
great grand old faces facing sun in wrinkles
all suddenly running
covering
burning
like oil and rice thrown in a flame
instant eternal cauldron of pain and despair
noble ignorance aside feasting on phosphorescent sands
pulls humanity back toward a lifeless sea
unenlightened unfulfilled unfurthered
stop it
all believers
be brave
some mornings come with no warning

meeting house after sunrise
(in 1965 norman morrison, stony run meeting executive secretary, poured kerosene on and immolated himself outside robert mcnamara’s pentagon office)

who may die

live still love calling
under infernocloud mushrooming miles
cast out away in steel ropes
withering shrinking in flamestorm
abandoned inside ringing glimmering wandering fire
uncrossed
wouldbegod casts and disappears
inkgreenblack oily smoke
i suppose a heavy metal bird should scream

shipping terminal at sunrise
(in 1965 a nine alarm oil fire threatened residents of wagners point who struggled on under criminal neglect by the city until the late 1990s)

rest next time

disconnected smallstreet
pigment pools punctured tears
sprinting stopping condemnation caucus
chimney sky-rockets rain mushroomthistle
tree arms temperfold
pollenpepper sneezes beat
seepingpipe molassess well
playlot furroweed
seawash lessening
faster walking risingreen souptide
kings poorman standing out of sight
summer days

small street at sunrise
(in 1964 vernon leopold was shot and killed in front of his mother’s house on parrish street by a policeman who had been drinking in a bar around the corner)

copitas

morning shadows breakfast
sun extinguishing electric street
smogashen dew briefsoothing
nothing despair nothing
slow anthrosuicide prevention
ringing phone
eggs runningintotoast
tableset edgeswiped
saucers sweeping in orbitspinning
blackcoffee whiteporcelain bread orangemarmalade
stay and drinkwithme
insomnia
because nothing rejoice
inour nohurry pleasantlighted cleancafe

charles and fayette at sunrise
(after continuing direct action in city restaurants that started at hoopers restaurant at charles and fayette streets in 1960, the maryland general assembly passed a law permitting the city and several other jurisdictions to bar segregation in public places in 1963)

skill and horsemanship

sea on land
flying horses galloping around
young crusaders battle mock enemies
ready and wielding
delight and survival in centrifugal force

former amusement park at sunrise
(after protests that started in 1955 and culminated in the trespassing arrest of hundreds of protesters, gwynn oak park, on gwynn oak avenue, desegregated in 1963)

castaways

shark gaping jaws four rows of teeth
expires slowly on deck
tail hatcheted oxygen seeping away
a messenger in viscera champagne blood commingled.
seek sailors foundered in cruelty
carry home a cargo of happiness

shopping center at sunrise
(after protests that started in 1955 and culminated in the trespassing and disorderly conduct arrest of hundreds of students who were jailed for three nights before the city government intervened, the northwood theater, on havenwood road between loch raven boulevard and hillen road, desegregated in 1963)

heart open

shadows unspiraling unturning under
pink peach light blue mercy
seen smiling faithfully
each day new sky
friendly singing
scarves and kerchiefs spin infinitely
for she who must be saved

baltimore and calvert at sunrise
(gillis memorial christian community church deacon and choir singer hattie carroll was murdered by a tobacco land-owner from charles county at the emerson hotel on baltimore and calvert streets in 1963)

swimming pool age

riverside
area to flowing water
a time volume velocity
upstream momentum in density
fluid flowing streamline fashion
long ropes tie off
persons pulling
weight ground on feet
horizontal separation center of mass
red river
jatavious jamarcus takeitha litrelle ladairus latevin
walled water just waits
and we float away in moonlight

swimming pool at sunrise
(an “angry, ugly, hate-maddened mob” threatened neighbors who came to swim at riverside pool in 1962)