How pretty
is the motor city
under neon diodes?
I sent my heart
into its stars
exhaled my soul
into rustbelt smoke
maybe I’ve lost my mind
or rather it’s left behind
my sanity abandoned
and blighted
my memories subjected
to successive evictions
—just f***ing forget ‘em—
I guess the city could
enlighten me a bit
on resilience
Categories:
rustbelt, adventure, city,
Form: Free verse
Look closely at
the crows.
At 9:00 p.m.
the highway ends
and hollow appendages
of turning headlights
pet the tangled shag of the field.
Dead-mute, perched in the
shush and sigh of wind through brush,
at the last turn-off.
Background city crest
rectangles
are switched off safes.
Locked in
dust,
old exploitations.
Once this field had no crows.
Black women hung diapers off tottering
porches. Families
lived sandwiched.
Splintered door frames,
coal clouded windows
and crooked bricks.
Now the crows are ebony raisins
of scrap dinner town
where only
bricks of blight
sunk among the weeds
are
cataracts
in
rain.
Published Black Buzzard Press - 1982
Categories:
rustbelt, city, death, depression, eulogy,
Form: Free verse
Risen
From the springtime flooding along South MLK
A sh#t-skinned slimy pipe
Pops half way up from a grimy hole
Like a gopher molded from iron ore
Neck and head periscoping left then right
Tiny arms bolted to its furry chest of rust
Surveying the silence of this industrial prairie
And the graves pocked from Foundry hammers
Until a school bell bangs
And a kaleidoscope gang of cell phone kids
Clamber from broken windows and dim doorways
To play in this forbidden park
Riding and rocking the new springer like a rodeo bronco
Screwing
The old boss back to its subterranean foundation
Another generation
Re-connecting the muddy wells to our silver faucets.
Categories:
rustbelt, cancer, children, city, community,
Form: Free verse