Tuesday, September 04, 2012

CHARLOTTE CONVENTION

by David Radavich


I don’t know where
you will find much history.

In museums,
in roped-off displays
and a few park-like estates
with docents and maps.

The real time 
is only now

and we are living it
without shadow

like a 2-D
group of faces

trying to be upbeat,
trying to be hip
and young and beautiful.

And we are

full of blood now
with a few memories,

but you’ll notice many
pleasant streets

that curl
and rename themselves

with willow oaks
as sentinels

and only the civil war
that race remains

and class extremes
dividing neighborhoods
with an elected fence.

Somehow we were hornets*
at the beginning

and we’re still
swarming

now and in the day
of our becoming.


*British General Cornwallis described Charlotte a “hornet’s nest of rebellion” during the Revolutionary War.                                  

                                              
David Radavich’s recent collections are America Bound: An Epic for Our Time (2007), Canonicals: Love’s Hours (2009), and Middle-East Mezze (2011).  His plays have been produced across the U.S., including six Off-Off-Broadway, and in Europe.  He is currently president of the Charlotte Writers’ Club and poetry editor of Deus Loci

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