dividing and conquering
secures meat when there is prey
opportunity when there is insecurity
obsolete technology applied with brute force
fission uncontrolled, with limited fuel.
swirling in patriological event horizon
we reset the physics
or disappear
(johns hopkins hospital opened on broadway street in 1889, aggressively applying science to medicine—followed by the opening of its companion medical school in 1893 as a result of funds raised and provided by mary elizabeth garrett, who demanded equal access to the school for women)
sunwarmed
pink white yellow red orchidmesmerized
orange tea rose thymeinfused
smooth velvet pricklytouched
grovequiet
i am transported
to another place in time
only here and now
(howard peters rawlings conservatory and botanic gardens of baltimore, opened as the druid hill conservatory in 1888, thrives in druid hill park—unlike conservatories installed in carroll, clifton, and patterson parks and later demolished)
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
(a statue of chief justice taney was installed in mount vernon square in 1887)
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
(in 1885 william walters donated five sculptures by antoine-louis barye, one of them titled force, to the city for mount vernon square)
brook brown and rainbow trout bass and carp
rise shimmering to hatches in deep pools riffles and fast flows
of mayflies caddisflies midges stoneflies
nymphs pupa duns spinners
to grasshoppers beetles ants cicadas crickets inchworms moths
poor fliers swarms
shrimp scuds sowbugs crayfish
leeches
minnows bullheads sculpins
snails craneflies dragonflies damselflies
in eleven cubic feet per second of coldwater
through fields of corn and wheat
cathedrals of eastern hardwood and deposits of salt petre
tasters of our royal cup
(in 1881 the city began consuming water from the gunpowder reserved at loch raven supplied to lake montebello on hillen and thirty-third streets)
in every atom
of metal in rails ships machines wheels
brick stone in streets walls foundations
wood in chairs beds tables coffins
food
polluted air
treated water
with quarks letpons bosons
interacts a greed hate fear particle
emitting waves in uncertain half-life
(baltimore trolleys were desegregated in 1871 as result of a suit filed by john fields—seventy-eight years before rosa parks protested segregated buses)
running soars through gravity devouring oxygen surviving
a celebrating race of power motion space.
horses master time flying in balance
god herds blossoming into thunder.
shamans pretending to know and ride
gamblers fixating on unknowables
jobbers scrounging the sweat of others
necromancers killing with thyroxinelasixnitrogenpharmaceuticals–
set the gods free
(the maryland jockey club reorganized in 1870, leased pimlico on hayward avenue which had briefly been a site for agricultural fairs, and ran the first preakness in 1873)
if the worlds refugees could queue to pier nine
fantasys freedom and mirages bounty
would rise in a vast choir
exhaling the pain of sixteen centuries.
if we were to stop making refugees
(in 1868 the steamer baltimore arrived at pier nine on the north shore of locus point from bremen for the first time—by 1914 pier nine was receiving forty thousand immigrants a year—the current world refugee population is estimated to be over sixty-five million)
cinders burning straw wind
clay to park liberty saratoga lexington
a factory on fire spawned men from windows
framehouses and brickhouses exploded in lightning and thunder
shouts and cries chorused into wailing prophesy
dragons pulled wagons through smoke and cinder
firefighters labored on the edge of sacrifice
crows and vultures circled updrafts high above
soaked blankets and men eclipsed the basilica.
the kindling fire in the shavings box next to the engine room
sparked from some strange density
beneath the street
(an 1873 fire that burned over four blocks and more than a hundred buildings around clay and park streets was followed by an ever increasing number of smaller fires leading up the 1904 fire)