Category: government

potash and fishmeal

mask wearers sweat in worsening cargo warehouse
taste feel smell hear see wealth
blowing to least resistance
brace lift carry turn choke
on fertilizer fantasy

ILA local office at sunrise
(two segregated international longshoremens association locals were forced by the federal government to merge in 1970)

beating brow

blue painted steel after night sky
gravity focused
dull brown brick in pink light
sharing load
orange stripes
tertiary painting
last of white street light
stored electrons
fundamental simple
means dignity justice voice

steel bridge at sunrise
(members of the welfare rights coalition camped out at department of social service headquarters in 1969 until the agency agreed to responsibly meet demands addressing basic human rights)

free agnew confrontation

random bestial power coursing
bunches of quakers praying
so many reminders
cars careening
in the same cell suffering
most solitary sadnesses
tiny shards in strong wind
bodies along to get it wrong
if only a law is just life celebration

maryland avenue at sunrise
(the baltimore defense committee, operating out of 2525 maryland avenue, organized several days of nationally prominent anti-war and social justice protests in 1968 during the trial of the catonsville 9)

 

best that ever

my violent law
my oppressing order
knees locked heels digging
lookup bluesky reeling
silhouettes surround swirling circling
smoke and flames
your hope despair your rage
my war

president street at sunrise
(criminal and governor spiro agnew mistook a hole in the ground after several days of unrest after martin luther king jr. was murdered in 1968, condescending to community leaders in his president street office)

radio message to silk stockings

large shattering glass windows
rage coming up the road
coursing action
shockwaves
human lithosphere elastic
subsiding in eerie melody of alarms
then sunlit bayonets
faultlines recharging

gay street at sunrise
(several days of unrest resulting in twelve million dollars of property damage in 1968 first started in the four hundred block of gay street two days after martin luther king jr. was murdered)

bringing up

in the crackle of burning paper
lost prayers on asphalt
smoke rising into seas unknowable
your answer god
god is war

frederick road at sunrise
(in 1968 daniel berrigan, phillip berrigan, david darst, john hogan, tom lewis, marjorie melville, thomas melville, george mische, and mary moylan seized draft records from a draft office at the catonsville knights of columbus building and burned them in the parking lot)

ninetynine fortyfour b

streaming straightrun snowdrops
bursting reformate
catalytic gay colors cracking
into instant suds hydrocrackating
prolonging alkylate sliprayonlife
mild isomerate gentle butanic
efficiencyfatal
safest possible incendiary soap a motherfucker can use

charles village street at surnise
(in 1968 bill o’connor and dean pappas mixed a test batch of napalm in bill’s charles village basement for the catonsville 9, who were preparing to raid the catonsville draft office and burn draft records)

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)

vast classification and terminal

winchester cumberland wheeling cincinnati
lousiville saint louis effner chicago
south bend muskegon mackinaw city
detroit sandusky cleveland ashtabula
erie buffalo rochester sodus point wilkes-barre
stroudsburg new york haddonfield cape charlie
washington baltimore
industrial america

cargo pier at sunrise
(the maryland port authority acquired the general cargo facilities of the pennsylvania railroad on clinton street in canton in 1967)