Lamp posts – magnify
a sheet of frozen water… on
cobblestone.
While, women complained,
“How cold it is” –
inside one room in a
Tenement, filled with
Immigrants.
While women complained
of noise – outside – in the
middle of the night – their
men gather around a
pail of fire… “Like bums.”
Women say – because they
know men gather inside of a
saloon – every other house
a place to drink, laugh, and
gamble. . .
men gather inside a saloon –
in the back room – more
gather there – use a back door –
Even a butcher shop
had a back door.
Men who delivered coal
complained – about the
strike. . . schools closed,
movie houses, and The Locomotive,
General Electric – having half
their staff –
It was a time when women used
dark brown sugar, and steak
was cheaper than butter.
The Stockade – where people,
imigrants slept side by side
with strangers, no one knew –
America – as a boat crossed
people screaming, waving
at a lady with a torch, they
thought they too were free.
America would place a stop
to imigrants, and The Stockade
would become more like home,
unlike the bottom of a steamer,
those people – no one knew.
The Stockade, was Syracuse,
Brooklyn, a small town in
Vermont, it was anywhere
in the United States where
work could be found –
hauling slate, to digging ditches,
delivering coal, running a
saloon and – much more.
Immigrants begged to be here
to enter America, begged to be
part of us – our dream…
Immigrants brought talent
while others left, returning to
their old country, and some
returned – leaving life they
knew behind…some left
unseen, some returned
to find a different dream
their travels, many – some
followed, some kept secrets,
brotherhood of a society –
Edison – they were not
but the Black Hand.