sculpture – Page 3 – sunrise in a small city

waxed bronze

pause over
my appointment with violent death
cause over

sailors and sldiers at sunrise — (the union soldiers and sailors monument was sanctioned in 1906 and dedicated in druid hill park in 1910, roughly coinciding with three failed attempts to disenfranchise maryland african american voters—it was moved to wyman park near 29th and charles streets in 1959 out of the path of the jones falls expressway)

roger brooke taney

your honor you are unbalanced
your unhinged brain dangling forward toppling over
oxygen deprived
filled with misconception
an inquisitor utterly lost
disgrace hangs all about you in long deep folds

racist at sunrise — (a statue of chief justice taney was installed in mount vernon square in 1887)

pressure

raise the stick like a hero
hold it in both hands high and mighty
hurl it clattering across the square
decide and act neither one nor the other
but both in dynamo

force at sunrise — (in 1885 william walters donated five sculptures by antoine-louis barye, one of them titled force, to the city for mount vernon square)

as byzantium

shall we each find a time and place
to dance on the waters
of the sea that surrounds us

youth fountain at sunrise — (in 1831 colonel eager’s heirs subdivided his estate and donated land for mount vernon place)

318

blocks of dark banded gneiss
girdling in a jagged spiral
rising above the statue
absorbing sunlight
could be one of the plans he was waiting for others to lead

monument at sunrise — (the washington monument was completed in 1829)

flesh-eating stone

the lady
standing on the fascis column
doesn’t see the rising or the setting sun

battle monument at sunrise — (the battle monument was completed in 1822)

commodore barney and hobart brown

a boatswains pipe called
to make sail and take them in again.
four horses pulled it in step
on front of the parading crews,
then the tiny federalist sailed.
to warmest expressions of ingenuity

kinetic sculptures — (maryland’s ratification of the federal constitution in 1788 was celebrated on philpot’s hill, which was subsequently renamed federal hill)