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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/380260-Detroit-x-by-pass
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Rated: 18+ · Book · Other · #995940
Poetic sketches of poems beginning with A through D
#380260 added October 19, 2005 at 12:37pm
Restrictions: None
Detroit (x) 'by-pass'
[ASR] Every city has cycles of growth and death. Folk fleeing to, fleeing from or just passing by.

♠♠♠♠♠Detroit

(x)

♠♠♠♠♠

They steamed across Lake Erie,
Walked-in-the-Water,
so to speak,
followed the ruts across the mudflats,
by-passed the growing city,
went out west.

My French-blue Catalina
heads the other way.
The traffic speeds by me at 70.
The old 389 keeps the pace
with my racing heart.
I by-pass the dying city.

Wealth came and went
when the banks collapsed in 1840.
Poor men came and stayed
when the factories burgeoned in 1940.
By 2040 what coin was minted here
will be long spent.

America by-passes the Motor City
on the wheels it makes
on the backs of its men.

Kåre Enga

catalogue number: [162.460]
16 Oktober 2005

Notes:

'Walk-in-the-Water' was the name of an early steam ship from Buffalo to Detroit.
'Catalina' refers to my first car, a '60 Pontiac Catalina.

© Copyright 2005 Kåre เลียม Enga (UN: enga at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Kåre เลียม Enga has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/380260-Detroit-x-by-pass