The Corner

for David Simon

Oh Baltimore / Man, it’s hard just to live.

—Randy Newman

West Baltimore is not one of Dante’s

descending circles of Hell,

just block after block of red-brick

flat-roofed rowhouses with puny

adjacent porches gaping at streets

that weave a rectangular maze

from which few escape.

Every morning fiends gather

at the corner where touts

chant brand names—Killer Bee,

Lethal Weapon, The Terminator—

for a sample taste of the day

and then spread the word

this shit is the bomb, a blast

that will last, bring back that first

soul-shattering high they crave

to ravish themselves again.

It’s a strictly cash-and-carry

business for the coke-crazed

pulling capers to make the nut.

Copper piping, aluminum siding,

steel fittings from construction sites

sold to Union Iron and melted down.

Or ransacking apartments, lugging off

the loot in black Hefty bags. Whatever

you boost, part of the game.

Each corner an open-air bazaar

for crews with the best package

money can buy (if they can hold

their ground), an oasis drawing

predator and prey—vacant-eyed

fiends wander in like wildebeests

to slack their thirst, jackals, big cats,

vultures primed to feed on

the weak and unwary—while

snatch artists eye touts slinging vials

for a chance to steal their stash.

Stickup boys, lone wolves

with long guns, shakedown

well-heeled dealers or rip

plywood from derelict buildings

in a testosterone rush to raid

shooting galleries, squalid dens

where the far-gone sprawl on floors

littered with pipes or spikes,

a few blackened bottle caps,

some matches, a jar of water,

each seeking the holy grail

in a glassine bag or plastic vial.

Like a barrel of blue crabs

anyone trying to climb out is

dragged back down. If you get

jacked by cops for conspiracy

with intent to distribute, a stint

at Hagerstown, a chance to give

tired veins a rest. Wine is fine,

so is dope, yet nothing is finer

than a toke of that ready rock.

The message: don’t mess with desire.

Once you do your own jail time

the corner will still be there.

Postmodern Poetry

The first sentence is

always hard. I’m glad

that’s over. Now we can

get down to business.

Allow us to introduce

ourselves. I’m a sentence.

Me too. Watch our progress

down the page. There’s no

stopping us. By now you,

our so-called reader,

assuming that you really

exist, want us to get

to the point, but who’s

to say what the point is

we reply, don’t you

know that everything is

absolutely relative, what

chance do you have if

all of us sentences

gang up on you? This

is our narrative, or, if

you prefer, discourse,

“reality” is not real,

words rule, we control

the page, ours is the power.

Hey, wait a minute,

you can’t do that to us,

we’re speaking here,

where in the world do

you think you’re going?