baltimore – Page 11 – sunrise in a small city

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)

after blasts of yells and blows
burn off with fog and mist
block walls painted light green drip
in halls without windows on copper skies
or with grated windows and crossed shadows
children move and pass as whispers
short and long
plump and lank
pale and brown so beautiful
shining tracks
elfish light
blue black green and orange
body of brothers sisters winding into rope
on a lonesome way thru tripping feet and spilled food
on a whirl spinning around
they row

southern high school at sunrise — (after several days of nasty confrontations and some arrests in 1954, students at newly integrated southern high school on warren avenue somehow persevered)

aint there nobody

our heritage irrational fear
disorder
powerlessness
flee into no diagnosis
self-medicate
ahhhypnotherapy demagoguery
newspapers is all
liars

school number 34 at sunrise — (in 1954 racists in pigtown protested school integration at elementary school number 34 on carey street and washington boulevard)

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)

can and will

once before
been the same
all about this thing
stare stopping victim
moments a lifetime
strange and simple
lost in a river
love is dark.
dark and blue

charles street at sunrise — (the swallows, formerly the oakeleers as teens in west baltimore—lawrence coxson, earl hurley, bunky mack, eddie rich, money Johnson, junior denby—performed at eddie leonmards spa musical bar on charles street in the late 1940s)

once in every

fire and flame
make me stronger
another chance again
still a lifetime
still i cry

pennsylvania avenue at sunrise — (the orioles, then the vibra-naires—sonny til, george nelson, alex sharp, johnny reed, lloyd gaither—and songwriter deborah chessler, all from west baltimore, began collaborating in 1948 and, according to many music historians, sparked the explosion of rock and roll after getting started on corners and in clubs on pennsylvania avenue)

viewing rooms

nasty business
from a promontory
stands in wet white linen
floats down to ships
on streets and alleys
touring
in scenery and repose

belvedere at sunrise — (the sheraton belvedere, on chase and charles streets, desegregated at christmas in 1954 for a month, before re-segregating at the demand of racist city business leaders)

teamsport

fingers strings steel compress release
balls turn in grace
arc in certainty
bounce in rolling chaos
through portals
past counterstrikes
into destinations
antipathyfree
in run stop pass hold launch strike
force finesse
constitutional policepowerfree
lovely spheres
spinning and flying

druid park from beechwood drive at sunrise — (despite a federal district court finding in 1953 that policy prohibiting interracial basketball, tennis, and golf in city parks was not unconstitutional, city parks were desegregated in 1953—one set of plaintiffs had been prevented from playing tennis together in druid hill park)

back here

place like this
who is lonely
chance dogs
hills
little streets
ships
ocean down around
mean going around
love somebody something now

ymca at sunrise — (the arena players started performing in 1953, and performed at the druid hill ymca from 1958 to 1960)

call to fascxiom

hoover’s hematemesis
vomited bubbling out windows
down crumblingmortar oxidizedaluminum moldyvinalwood
into buried earthlung springs
mccarthy’s melena
served mysterymeat
in soupkitchen with sugaredwater
largetracing arsenicleadbenzene
nixon’s necrosis
spreading comfortmutation.
wallace’s stent
scalpaling steelsword
excise resist reject from electricbody

wallace statue in druid hill park at sunrise — (dorothy rose blumberg, later convicted and jailed for advocating for better minimum wages and against discrimination and against abuse of civil liberties, was trailed by many fbi agents in 1952 around reservoir hill where she lived, including on her trips to druid hill park)

Tag: baltimore