Burnt Brick Serenade
A poem to 1960s Detroit
The city churns like an iron engine
grinding teeth of assembly lines
the sweat of a thousand men on Grand River and Fenkell
where the streets carry whispers of machines and dreams
Motown hums through the smog
syrupy melodies sliding from high-rise windows
Berry’s basement spins gold out of gospel and grit
and Diana’s voice cuts the night like polished glass
Smokey sings of miracles, but the streets crackle with fire—
hot July nights when bottles shatter louder than basslines
when screams tear through the harmonies of the Supremes
The Tigers roar from Briggs Stadium
Kaline swinging hope into the bleachers
the crack of the bat a small salvation
but outside, the chalk lines stretch longer each year
A double play inside, a double standard out—
white flight zooms down Woodward as black families
build houses of pride on ashes of neglect
Corruption seeps like oil into the gears
Politicians shake hands in back rooms thick with cigars,
their smiles smudged with grease and shadow
Police radios buzz like gnats in the heat
cruisers prowling neighborhoods like circling wolves
their lights casting red and blue scars on broken brick
This is Detroit in the decade of combustion
where music is a lifeline and the factory bell
rings louder than church steeples.
The city stumbles on, a boxer bloodied but upright
singing its contradictions in four-part harmony:
a city of melody and malice,
of fists raised in rhythm,
of hope carved from despair