five poems
by Glenn Bach
from Atlas
NIMBY are we
a city on its fringe to shape the world
beyond. To be clear the herding is not inevitable
through variable depth
or open space. Oscillation through harbors of arbitrary
shape
therein
the tropes contained
change the definition of back
yard about upholding property: of scenic vistas:
our collective recovery. Story after story in the moment
of the writing
‘the village’ as backwards to survive the
unfolding afford-
able multi-
family housing will decrease the
happy discoveries in a city we love
who allowed to
(for whom the weight outlived the covenants).
*******
born of theory. A trillion pounds
and more the weight of cities
themselves. Steam under the pavements
of building foundations
to salt water
warn
wary at fault
adverse urban tissue
burnt too often
of the shadows expect
to cast. Reinforced concrete
of the world the pressure exerted
on the earth. Than Paris
more downbeat
of steamboats shifted
shipworms
an overhang
so many of the trees
have already died. Clay rich
and artificial fill farther into
the water. The park
is the piers
a flutter of pendants and trophies
a cluster of boulevards haunted
*******
as duck and teal
hills leveled
on account of the high wind
marshes filled
paved streets lined with
palaces
struggling on the self-same
spot sixty-two passenger trains
of mills and factories turning out bread
and wealth
tenure in the north. Topsoil million years
in the making
where even carp could
not live
*******
Who bought the house you always admired.
Unveil the scam these structures that shelter us that we did not build
ourselves. Or source nearby timber.
The global commerce of it. The stink of it.
Will we let our ruins percolate into the soil. No compost here
in the endless covering. The endless barriers like this fence
with wrought iron finials.
We are the shade of our grammar. We are the syntax of our inhabiting.
And how many of these streets overlay ancient paths through
the floodplain. Through cottonwood and chaparral.
Coastal sage scrub and the crumbled rock between.
Prickly pear here and not there. Behold these bricks held with mortar
behold these rust-colored tiles.
Ground was torn. That we know.
*******
Who lives in the City that cares
where a lease
is never a sale / resembles
the movement of the bird
definitely the backbone
who stood up
when the City was obviously wrong
about the hearts of the People
from a few dozen houses on San Juan
Street: Little Manila of College
Estates, Lemon Wood, Pleasant
Valley, Seabreeze:
SeaBees: clerks, this is a great
source of pride, cooks &
builders if community leaders
were stunned, Satanas
Sunkist
Tinikling
ringing out down
the hallways, the future
for two hands
nurturing a growing bloom
Picture of Glenn Bach
BIO: Glenn Bach, originally from Southern California, now lives in the Dugway Brook watershed of Cleveland, Ohio. Glenn retired from a career in sound art and experimental music to focus exclusively on Atlas, a long poem about place and our (mis)understanding of the world. Excerpts have appeared in such journals as DIAGRAM, jubilat, and Plumwood Mountain; sequence-length excerpts include cricket (eclipse) (Stone Corpse Press, 2024) and verdugos (Ghost City Press, 2024). Glenn documents his work at glennbach.com and @atlascorpus.bsky.social.