What's That Smell?

I chose to start this blog with a post/poem dedicated to the eleven women in Cleveland who died at the hands of  Anthony Sowell.  Black and poor is apparently not a good way to be Cleveland.  The fact that Sowell, a convicted rapist, was able to collect rotting bodies without arousing the  suspicions of local law enforcement, speaks volumes about attitudes in urban America.  See Huffington Post Article.  Some of the victims were reported as missing and the police did little other than paper shuffle.  After all, these women were prostitutes and drug addicts.  They will turn up sooner or later when they need a place to flop or money for their habits.  Even the smell of death in the neighborhood around Sowell's house did not prompt an investigation.  See sausage factory.  

The saddest part of this whole story is that Anthony Sowell did a 15  year stretch for rape and was a registered sex offender.  In spite of this record when an intended victim, Gladys Wade, managed to escape and run to the cops, they chose to believe that Sowell was the victim and the case never went anywhere.  See Cleveland woman escapes Sowell .  This occured in 2008 and since then, five more women have turned up missing in the neighborhood.  

Think about your own neighborhood.  What would happen if a person disappeared?  Would it sound all sorts of alarm bells or would it only be noticed for a day or two?  Would the smell of decaying flesh eminating from a registered sex offender's house cause more than a stir, or would it blamed on the local sausage factory?

She'll Show

Where's Tonia?

"Go home
she'll show
as soon the drugs are gone
she'll show"

If we'd have been blow flies
we would have found her
Dipteran bloodhounds
randy for the smell

of blood and guts

that seasons every breeze

in this town where

black is black and nothing more

He was the devil
his demon-glow made  Gladys  fight strong
and she did not die like so many others

But black is black in a town where

women disappear
         and no one asks

cops can't hear
         and no one cares

the smell of death goes unnoticed
blame the sausage factory
blame the sewers
and black is still black

Tonia's black

and Tonia finally did show
as a brief blue glow
when wet with luminol