Stephen Mormoris
Baltimore Spring
The gentrification of
elegant neighbourhoods is slow
as falling in love
with them. Still the streets are quiet
at night. A policeman patrols
on a horse past the hollow
mansions of Mount Vernon
and from his saddle slaps a ticket
on a car and moves on.
Far from the centers of crime,
far from his duty,
the stately row of turn
of the century
homes at least consoles
him: life was civilized one time,
and that criminals can learn.
. . .
Yet the city opens its arms!
On a glorious day
pedestrians lose their way
in a new neighbourhood
of historic townhomes and trees.
Students of music and poems
feel inspired to compose
in the park--on the grass instead
of the benches--while the sweet alarms
of children playing play
like notes against the repart6e
of hammers renovating homes.
. . .
Across the cityscape
of a pleasant day downtown
sheets of sun drape
two facing towers’ sheer glass sides.
And in the chasm between,
the contrasting industrial brick
shows through, and reminds
me it is an old city.
Lost in the cross
reflections of strains of glass,
on the brick I find the faded signs
of Home Mutual Life and Scarlett Seeds
under the sound of noon-time traffic,
dangling in another century.
Page(s) 22-23
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The