gone

once upon a time there were green Dutch elm canopy coverd streets in Detroit
where when we played ball beneath them you could hardly see blue.

And there were hosts of people who sat on porches while we played our games,
while winds whirled through them making them speak leafy language

of happiness and contentment in the city
off six mile

while everyone it seemed was pleased even if Nam was
going on and bigotry bloomed

it was a good place
and then it was not so good

porches emptied, barron
they’d moved away, the great vaulted ceilings of the city

disappeared
with them.

Fate

Court-ordered busing cornered
so many kids
into exiting public school for private
changing everything
changing our collective dreams
our so called fate
to change
because
somewhere along the line of existence
people decided before our births
and we paid for it,

But if you could see Balduck Park at night
in 1979
in October after a football game
Then you’d see spirit of unity --

of displaced kids from those private and public
schools believing in themselves
in Detroit.

Coming Home

Coming home from fresh air of northern Michigan
Coming home and funneling from I-75
Into the heavy July heat of 8 Mile,
The timbre of traffic and exhaust
of litter and billboards giant cat tails with signs,
The sounds and smells contrasted to yesterday’s,
where I was and dreamed about with
Outdoor Life,
and how strange a clash it always was -- still

I was coming home.

Gratiot

Any night in the light of lamps
in summer
when dreams are only beginning
and youth is proud and
doesn’t worry
we’d clean our car and cruise Gratiot from eight
to 15
and hope to be seen by pretty girls
or someone to fight
at White castle on 11
only to go home and
dream again like
kids.

Detroit As It Is Remembered

It's called lots of things, the way lots of cities are. It's home to a dwindling population, yet home to millions everywhere else.

Detroit has a history too. It has that right.

I call it my birthplace, my home; the place where Tigers and Lions, Wings, and Pistons remain alive in my heart. Not because I love the city, but because I love the childhood they remind me of -- days spent listening to a transistor radio breath The Beatles, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Petula Clark, The Monkees, the great Stevie Wonder. Those were the days when a Sunday meant a Tiger game on the radio while my dad, uncles, and grandfather drank Stroh's beer, smoked cigars, and held pleasant conversation while we kids played crack-the-whip and made our mom's worry.

The damned place changed and to this day I really do not know why. I do know that for whatever reason or reasons hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of people may presently feel deprived of having had a decent opportunity to grow up and remain part of a city that ultimately, ironically seemed to implode. In the end it must be that people have the power of effecting change. People.