(Anonymous Photo)
STRANGE RECLAMATIONS
—Michael Ceraolo, Willoughby Hills, OH
A house on the East Side
where eleven women had been murdered
and the smell of death had been blamed
on the sausage factory next door,
and
a house on the West Side
where three women had been kept
as sex slaves for a decade;
both razed
as though the evil were in the houses themselves
and not in the respective residents
who committed the crimes
(and
all the materials destroyed rather than re-used
in order to prevent souvenir hunters)
A former movie theater first converted
to storefronts with apartments above,
now converted to a grassy lot,
and
another theater converted to a parking lot
A house in the suburbs razed to make way
for a pocket-sized park and garden
And many others,
a too-lengthy list,
gone;
gone
for no other reason than that someone
(or several someones)
decided they should be gone,
those someones
sometimes looking to make a name for themselves
and always ignoring the truism
that the greenest house is the one
that is already built,
and not caring
that demolishing homes that are structurally sound
when many people are homeless
has little or no justification,
except
as a ritual sacrifice
to the god of property values
______________________
—Medusa, with thanks to Michael Ceraolo for this poignant poem about lost homes and other habitats, including his own.
Celebrate poetry today by going to Avid Reader on Broadway
in Sacramento, where Mosaic of Voices will present
Juan Manuel Carrillo and Danny Romero, 2pm.
Scroll down to the blue box (under the green box
at the right) for info about this and
other upcoming readings in our area—
and note that more may be added at the last minute.
Scroll down to the blue box (under the green box
at the right) for info about this and
other upcoming readings in our area—
and note that more may be added at the last minute.