he stood
in uniform
(black jacket, blue jeans, che guevara-style pseudo revolutionary cap)
at the chain link gates
of the new emerald city
brown skinned ogun
stripped of his machete
probably remembering
former territory
grandma's house
maybe auntie's kitchen
or where he & his boys played playstation
back in 90something
during christmas break
standing between
pulverized history
and a brave new world
that doesn't necessarily exclude him
but ain't sendin
hospitality committees
either.
(c) l.a.m. 2006
*note: johns hopkins has torn down several blocks of homes in the area known as "middle east" to make room for parking lots, a new biotech complex, and housing and services for its employees. the first phase of this project is underway. many blocks have been leveled, and there are several more marked for destruction.
there has been a massive relocation effort which has been handled better than in most cities where this kind of development occurs. still, when i see people like this man on the street, frozen by what they see--or memories of what they used to see--around them, i think about all the history and memories the rubble has buried.
2 comments:
speechless...land is what connects us to our roots, gentrification=theft whatever you wanna call it is like snatching a tree up out of the ground and taking the roots with it
yeah...there were a LOT of issues with all this, and still are, i'd guess. some construction was stalled after the financial collapse...
there are houses in some places & the biotech park building continues, but it's all the same just a few blocks down the road...
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