The River Turned Red
The River Turned Red
In 1877 the river morphed, red. The muddy waters’ flow interrupted, by the color of tomato soup.
The Mound Cities rivermen and railmen stopped cold.
Sticks and guns suffocate their humbled pride,
Wharf Street turned blood red.
There lay the proletariat, moved by their hunger.
Prostrate on granite cobblestones they silently lay.
Those of the working class: their vital fluid and sweat.
now shared the crevices.
Creating a maddening stench,
that no man should have to review.
No eye could close,
New colors invented,
The blood stained cobblestone,
mixing with dirt and animal waste
and the filth of well traveled roads.
Death’s fiery grasp out of control.
Today we find ourselves,
walking those same quays,
our resolve lost between the soles of our shoes
and the washed-out blood red granite remaining.
Hundreds of lifetimes have come and gone.
But the age old divisions have not changed.
Sweat challenging gold,reborn,
The humble versus the empowered, breeding death,
the rich and poor, fighting to retain a dream,
the haves and the have nots, currency and humanity colliding.
In an age old dance they continue to bump unresolved.
Coming together, only to disagree.
The stain and stench remains
Losing dignity seldom regained.
Complacency reigns like the barons of old,
Thumbs on the scale more now than ever
While lingering, precious time dissolves
The greatest sin of all, on display but,
buried out of view beneath the mortar of the blood-stained cobblestone.
Yet it remains.
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शान्ति εἰρηνικός سلام.n — [ L ] 和平 ☮︎ शांति 평화 ſíot͡ʃáin ሰላም pax
