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
(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)
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
(the maryland port authority acquired the general cargo facilities of the pennsylvania railroad on clinton street in canton in 1967)
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
(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)
finger piers break-bulk
shorefigurate into yards consolidating sheds
fugitive particulate cornslagate
one-hundred year alignments
squatting bulks of coalorefertilizergrainpetrol leaching awaytide
smother the waterfront industrial vacancy
patiently waiting water as one i love
come with the sea
(in 1964 the maryland port authority took possession of the locust point marine terminal from the b & o railroad)
drinking dining
seeing ships boats shoreline
southeast onto late afternoon riversea
sun slowly farther behind
lower then forgotten
steamer slipping into evening south
through nursing sharks under homebound heron
night sinking into past
so far
a speck of light
explodes all
and rainforest drips unsilent
first tomatoes
stew and soup
onions cabbage carrots squash lentils beets
bread and butter
fish and plums
ornate lock in rabbi soul
circular chapel blue green pieces
shining dove in water
liniment in oil
service overseas
walking in flowers to sound of crows
(the jewish museum of maryland was founded in 1960 to save the lloyd street synagogue from demolition)
coppertin bronze harmonics lathed echoing dalgans fort ring out over tarmac-topped hexavalent chrome airships into industry disappear back into weather expodingpiston magic carpets rolloffrollon steel coils raw rubber wood pulp
(the maryland port authority bought harbor field, formerly the baltimore municipal airport, in 1959 and began constructing the dundalk marine terminal)
not gary johnstown birmingham youngstown lackawanna
yawata dortmunde-horde port talbott magnitogorsk
morning mist so red
sky orange sun far off night glowing warm
red bellies hot entrails piss wash lightning cold
kitchen grilling steel eel
extruding endlessly
rolling shining exploded ore
burning boiling hotblast
plate structural strip sheet
tonnage crying screaming born
in massive sweating smoldering forceps
(sparrows point was the largest steel mill in the world in 1957)
a large backward el
along highlands above a river
through rail oil alluvium
spinestraight façade oceaneast
saattaannaammaa
momentmelodywatergather
rubbberwhirrspistonsechoes
patapsco
darkness
light
(the harbor tunnel opened in 1957 reducing automobile travel time through baltimore via fairfield and canton to philadelphia or dc)