Category: housing

how far you go

leeward
to peas beans melons cantaloupes asparagus crabs oysters
orchards picnics
sick sailors immigrants dying contagious with mary
suburban mirage manguano cannery company town
baseball beer dancing burlesque
manufactury refinery petrolasphaltchemicalpool rails
gastank smokestack waste
liberty victory jumboizing containerizing
community clutching sandymuddyoiled rubbishroad
to fairfieldbrownfield
and beyond
to pleasant prospect adventure utopia
sweating river

brdge at sunrise
(in 1916 the hanover street bridge, now vietnam veterans memorial bridge, over the middle branch of the patapsco, replaced the long bridge between light street and fairfield)

quarantine

enforced
great change in the physical aspect of baltimore
isolation
was brought about by the removal of the buildings along saint paul
limit
cleared into a series of sunken gardens
infection
elaborate stairways
into lonely places

lonely place at sunrise
(in 1914 a thriving, predominantly black neighborhood around saint paul street between lexington and center streets was razed as mayor preston innovated baltimore apartheid)

sunset path

perhaps
over the next crest
in another dell
around the hedge end
we will find ourselves together
speaking of pain and sweat and hunger and michelangelo
in a human register
next steps falling natural
as we plan our survival
alone cojoined

footpath at sunrise
(sunset path, connecting hillside and club roads, is one of many footpaths in roland park, which was developed by the roland park company starting in 1891, the first of several developments exclusively for white christians—a policy the company never altered before dissolving in 1959)

changed alleys

in apple liberty bottle dutch
argyle union brandy honey
happy whiskey sugar wagon
petticoat strawberry welcome
a struggle
for safe intimate space
working walking families
sheltering
intimate
tenacious communion
as a maelstrom gathered
hewn frames shaken blistered scoured in blasts sun and rain
in the eye of hatred and fear
powered by saturating stifling greed and ignorance
the settling storm
relentless
moved great hills of sand
swept away timber and cobbles
moving on so painfully slow
matched by the craton under small streets

strawberry alley at sunrise
(most alleys, like strawberry alley now dallas street, where poor working families lived in the 18th century, have been renamed or redeveloped)

a place apart

not within a half mile
for the reception of poor
vagrants, beggars, vagabonds, and other offenders
idle dissolute disorderly loiterers
who follow no trade, labor, or occupation
as shall be committed by justice.
especially for poor incapacitated by illness, old age, physical handicap, mental deficiency, or insanity
beds, bedding, tools, utensils, cows, horses, a doctor and his medicines
to acquire a livelihood.
for the successful trials of vaccination first on nancy then on others.
for beams of light in the dark grandeur of the soul.
intemperate or opiated
religiously perplexed or fanatic
ill
grief stricken by loss of affection or property
masturbating
indulgent of passion or pride
domestically unhappy.
supposed

alms at sunrise
(in 1773 the colonial legislature enacted a law for the establishment of an alms and work house outside baltimore town—the site selected was near howard, eutaw, and biddle streets)