September 2019
NOTE: This month I am sharing three poems about Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee is known for racial segregation and also the open housing marches of 1967 and 1968, where civil rights activists marched for 200 consecutive days. Milwaukee is a city of Cream City brick, fine craft, many immigrant groups, beer halls, and a thriving arts scene.
Victims of Progress
We set out to find lonely Jones Island
on a cold May morning with empty streets.
Under the Hoan bridge, kissing the mainland,
it was named for one of our early elites
who built a shipyard here in the 1800s,
replacing the Potawatomi’s summer
retreat, where wild rice grew in lush abundance.
Kulturkampf then bred a wave of newcomers--
Kashubians arrived from the Baltic Sea,
caught herring, sturgeon, whitefish, and trout.
Until Milwaukee’s bourgeoisie
said the immigrant squatters need to get out
because this is the best place to treat our sewage.
The village gave way to industrial usage.
White Chicken Dance of Milwaukee
So much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed
with rain water beside the white chickens.
-The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams
Hands lifted chest high and pecking just so
at the beer hall fish fry, with too much
hot oil, and polka music which depends
on lager and bodies swishing upon
the dance floor, seasoned with a
heritage of German socialist red;
those grandfather bricklayers and wheelbarrow
wheelers. This winter the demoralized glazed-
over media savvy Millennials with
toddlers in tow, dance in a rain
of remembered mirth. Sweat, like holy water,
cleanses their sorrows. They elbow-flap beside
their children who straight-faced learn the
ritual of their gentrified Milwaukee white-
flightless-ness in the fannie-shake of chickens.
Frank Juarez Gallery Tour
Sweeping midwestern
landscape of apricotted sky
abstracted fields of line and color
freeways harvest
cornfield topography
art emotes land with gifted brush
third ward galleries brush against smoked
industrial valley
imagine charcoal
Frank Juarez our guide
from gallery to gallery
we cut through cream city alleys
patina-ed narrows where
windows squint through nailed-on boards
glance towards dumpster's
tilted lurch
his mama once worked in a factory here
alleys orient our compass
every time we step out
from their shadows
dazzling sunshine window
glass offsets brick along its detail craft
could have been Portland, Toronto, or
Atlanta
at lunch there are exotic
urban flavor drinks
martini-ed Motown
melodies wonderful
Frank Juarez shares his fries
-published in Verse Wisconsin
Victims of Progress
We set out to find lonely Jones Island
on a cold May morning with empty streets.
Under the Hoan bridge, kissing the mainland,
it was named for one of our early elites
who built a shipyard here in the 1800s,
replacing the Potawatomi’s summer
retreat, where wild rice grew in lush abundance.
Kulturkampf then bred a wave of newcomers--
Kashubians arrived from the Baltic Sea,
caught herring, sturgeon, whitefish, and trout.
Until Milwaukee’s bourgeoisie
said the immigrant squatters need to get out
because this is the best place to treat our sewage.
The village gave way to industrial usage.
White Chicken Dance of Milwaukee
So much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed
with rain water beside the white chickens.
-The Red Wheelbarrow, by William Carlos Williams
Hands lifted chest high and pecking just so
at the beer hall fish fry, with too much
hot oil, and polka music which depends
on lager and bodies swishing upon
the dance floor, seasoned with a
heritage of German socialist red;
those grandfather bricklayers and wheelbarrow
wheelers. This winter the demoralized glazed-
over media savvy Millennials with
toddlers in tow, dance in a rain
of remembered mirth. Sweat, like holy water,
cleanses their sorrows. They elbow-flap beside
their children who straight-faced learn the
ritual of their gentrified Milwaukee white-
flightless-ness in the fannie-shake of chickens.
Frank Juarez Gallery Tour
Sweeping midwestern
landscape of apricotted sky
abstracted fields of line and color
freeways harvest
cornfield topography
art emotes land with gifted brush
third ward galleries brush against smoked
industrial valley
imagine charcoal
Frank Juarez our guide
from gallery to gallery
we cut through cream city alleys
patina-ed narrows where
windows squint through nailed-on boards
glance towards dumpster's
tilted lurch
his mama once worked in a factory here
alleys orient our compass
every time we step out
from their shadows
dazzling sunshine window
glass offsets brick along its detail craft
could have been Portland, Toronto, or
Atlanta
at lunch there are exotic
urban flavor drinks
martini-ed Motown
melodies wonderful
Frank Juarez shares his fries
-published in Verse Wisconsin
© 2019 Sylvia Cavanaugh
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF