Category: housing

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)

community relations

any person aggrieved
discriminationsegregation
dwelling opportunity
familial person natural
orientation place public
covenant
population composed
care groups practice place
hardship social
arbitrary age chance equal
liberties
untold anxieties
permanent effects

city hall from gay and saratoga at sunrise
(the city council passed an equal employment ordinance in 1956)

blessing

shining
sunny plenty
magic circling
naked unafraid walking beauty
clamor crying morning
red is blood
ringing laughter

mondawmin mall at sunrise
(mondawmin mall, between gwynns falls parkway and tioga parkway and reisterstown road and monroe street, opened in 1956, with some stores serving only white customers)

hobby farms

summers in lyndhurst
bundles of hay and rights
hardwood and natural capital
wild sunflowers crows
walk on sparkle of water
live upon land everlasting
roam over josephs horses
sliced bread and scattered crumbs

roekby road at sunrise
(the last keelty rowhouse built in the city was erected in 1954 in edmondson village)

waverly

sacked by kingstroops
wanton mischief pavement shattered
doors windows demolished
furniture fragments
family pictures ground tatters
fruit-trees down
fragments scattered around
shivered explosion shadows
they come upon leave us in extremitie
red moon through clouds where the dead shall be

shopping center at sunrise
(in 1951 the waverly redevelopment project razed blocks of integrated rowhouses to support aggressive segregationist policy, with help, either bungling or cynical, from the federal housing administration)

duly executed

bodies corporate perpetuating duration percentum
sheltering rent property public
dwelling not with standing
aggregating mutual covenants
whereof
witness
safety healthy morals

city hall dome at sunrise
(in 1949 over 2000 city residents railed at a city council meeting against unisolated public housing)

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)

i believe him

come out here
swollen fruit dumped chemicals long evaporated
into struggle to worklive with respect
and desperation-bred grandiose plans
with new money
from dubai-on-patapsco

from seabury road at sunrise
(cherry hill homes public housing opened in 1945 after the end of world war II—cherry hill is between the middle branch, patapsco river, west patapsco avenue, and 295)

honor of selection

common standard
achievement housing health wellbeing
decent living
pleasing and worthy
for up and coming
substandardly housed people in need
carefully selected mainly family
in doomed wasteful toxic industry of allocation
more difficult than providing for all

affordable housing at sunrise
(poe homes affordable housing opened in 1940 on lexington and freemont streets with 298 of 1500 applicants delighted to have a basic human right fulfilled)

been ever since

turn on the faucet
rains here run to stormy sea
clouds walk by
streets whisper doomsday
towncity left alone
they dont come
blues about
hush now
dont quit me
long way to go

royal sunrse
(the douglass theater, later renamed the royal, opened in 1921 on pennsylvania avenue and lafayette street)