Empire Lines: Walking Denver's Colorado Boulevard

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Do you feel it rising,

Like lava and bones?

Cracked feet and strollers

Skirting edges of thrones

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Cherry Creek doesn’t see us

More money, more clothes

Hilltop and cameras

Humanity disposed

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It’s pouring outside

Five bags from the mart

Milk, apples, and cans

Sweating from the start

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I can’t wipe my eyes

As I slip through the mud

Foggy glasses and pain

Devoured by floods

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My bags start to break

Sending beans down the gutter

No cover at the stop

Survival and thunder

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Waiting for the bus

Should be here soon

Yesterday’s was late

Stopped running at noon

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I’ll never understand

Why it feels so violent

My heart beats like yours

Too many are silent

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Does public mean public?

Like free days at the zoo

Car lobby kisses

I pay taxes too

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Money looks away

Power clenches its grip

My humble human frame

The daily practical trip

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Like widgets and pawns

Fixed on screens and machines

You bypass my bleeding

Numbness, no feeling

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Parking and driving

Gods of cement

Ultimate separation

Gas guzzling lament

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It’s no good for you, too

So much cussing and honking

This road is a sham

Lights blinking, no dancing

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I walk and I roll

Sick trees and dead bees

Splashed by the puddles

Of consumer disease

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Towers and growth

Magicians of destruction

Colonial strings

Worthiness equals production

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City Park trees

Give me rest and relief

Kids playing and jumping

Shake off the grief

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Park Hill skylines

From golf course grasses

Blocked by fences,

red lines, and classes

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I want you to see me

My eyes and my tears

I want you to know me

My dreams and my fears

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Stop slicing our lives

By skin and by coin

Slow all the way down

So all may join

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My breaths and my being

Are valid and true

Break free from the lies

That keep me from you

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This poem is dedicated to (1) all beloveds who move through the City of Denver by foot or on a wheelchair as their primary form of transportation and (2) unraveling from and imagining our way out of violent cars-before-people practices on all arterial streets everywhere.

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*written February of 2021 by Jonathon Stalls

*created and produced alongside the Living Denver Podcast with History Colorado, House of POD and Rebecca Mendoza Nunziato (visit the podcast and poem reading here)

*photo: taken by Jonathon Stalls via Pedestrian Dignity project on Colorado Boulevard and 26th Ave (Denver)

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