Baltimore

Orange cream carrot cupcakes
Two kids with sleds talk with strangers and
let them fly down
Federal hill dragging feet for terror stop me
Three wars, two civil or that is to say two
revolutions the
guns over the city to ensure Maryland's
interest in staying rockets
red glare over Fort McHenry
(and the Domino sugar company)
Grey area border states, riots in the streets,
Roll off into the snow to avoid parking meters and concrete,
When they leave I'll use a lunch tray and
get snow down my back, through my khakis.

Camden yards brick city old factories
Scattered paintings swirls, stipples, pointil-paintings,
Factory school university
Freedom of thought (self-taught)
As stodgy creativity
Should we take art seriously?
Hardly.
Winter overcast photography
Can't see the shades of coloured bridges
Or freckles (just the lens?)
B+O railroad (Never went to AC?)
The way you look me in the eye has always drawn me
and intimidated me.
MICA was mechanical arts
Babe Ruth dreamed
Japanese red snapper sushi
Garlic caught me off guard, pretty and pink
We reminisce on problems of Pensacolic
societies,
Our home that never felt welcoming.
Artists sometimes smoke for respect,
Blowing words in chilly breeze,
attempting to summit towering chocolate vegan muffins.

Workshop: impact paintings, extensions on easels,
brushes, used cups of coffee, flowing rivers of concrete and cubicled
genius A thoughtful smile (ever-present, deafening) illuminated in
a flowing red frame, the balcony window
light hovering a story above the street and stories of
freakouts driving the wrong streets free buses
and Cal Ripken's heroic consistency, He lived to play,
Present a landscape of orange, brick, black, water lights,
mosaics with squirrels with haloes on top and
passed dino bones deep slow breathings of
the bay and the interstate and histories, weary
from walking, sometimes home feels like this in-between, a border state,
A little cup of green tea in passing, "Yes, I see you,"
The acknowledgement when strangers' eyes meet
between bus door closing eye blinks,
And something human (or cupcake) is shared, momentarily.