Category: control

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)

inpatientcity

breathing shallow sweating dizzy
numb blurred not thinking through
diagprescribed
fractionally distilled elixirpolymers
combpestled
mechanical opiates of directforce
supremely lucrative to attending charlycians
breathingeatingpissingshitting monetizedlifeforce
incapitalpathology

powerplant at sunrise
(in 1948 the national city lines holding company funded by gm, standard oil, firestone, and phillips added complete control of the baltimore transit company, which was powering electric streetcars from its plant on pratt street, to its collection of almost fifty soon-to-be disinvested and dismantled city streetcar utilities across the country)

two lights on behind

my baby left me
leaving hate
thinking memory pain
fading understanding why
consciousness unaffected
here with less
is somehow more and more
unemptying emptiness

train and lake after sunrise
(in 1948 a majority of maryland, and baltimore city, voters approved a constitutional amendment authored by baltimore county that restricted the city’s ability to grow)

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)

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)

by numbers

four . . . .
dimensions
radicals
truths
questions
aims
books
freedoms
types
states
forces
squares around intersection
eight short of riot
or just manageable extermination
for supply of demand

clothing factory at sunrise
(in 1932 schoenemans was granted an injunction to limit amalgamated clothing workers striking against abusive working conditions to four picketers at a time—city police attempted to enforce the injunction at the schoenemans factory at redwood and paca streets)

communitycide

commissioners sprawl about the table
misters bonefish, toadley, macflie, spongeson, and mahlisck
overwhelming putrid farting with donated cigar smoke
dulling single minds with gifted liquor
playing pocketpool with rolls of dough
sharing needles of noxious high
too many kings in the strange deck
they gamble away
children asleep by a coalbin outside
dream of greenfields and bent fishingpoles

southern districts shoreline at sunrise
(in 1922 southern and eastern districts were zoned entirely, including pockets of existing communities, for heavy industry)

eyes in the sky

after the parade with torches and horses
fireflies everywhere
a tug of war on the steep hill
shouting pulling as father inched up
the tower light shining down behind him
“hands off!”
we heaped into the dirt just like that

mill tower at sunrise
(in 1923 after the owners of the mount vernon mills, at the end of chestnut street, failed to negotiate for several months on working hours and pay, workers ended the unsuccessful strike)