Analysis of Baltimore At War



Bullets flying
Criminals at their doors.
People screaming,
Please...no more.

Baltimore is at war,
From within and without.
Off in the distance
You can hear the shouts.

Shouts of the people.
Dying alone in the dark.
Heads turning
As bullets find their mark.

No safety in shelter.
Get shot in the streets.
Afraid of their neighbors.
People they meet.

Politicians laughing
At the hapless fools.
The ones who should have paid attention
To the scandals in their schools.

A GENOCIDE is occurring
Of the young and old.
The numbers keep mounting.
Can't put them on hold.

Baltimore is at war
From within and without.
Off in the distance
You can hear the shouts.


Scheme axab BCDE xfaf xxxx agxg ahah BCDE
Poetic Form Quatrain  (43%)
Metre 1010 100111 1010 11 10111 101001 10010 11101 11010 1001001 110 110111 110010 11001 011110 1011 01010 10101 011111010 1010011 0101010 10101 010110 11111 10111 101001 10010 11101
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 669
Words 142
Sentences 20
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 18
Words per line (avg) 4
Letters per stanza (avg) 74
Words per stanza (avg) 16

About this poem

Baltimore City, is not unlike a lot of cities in the U.S. today that are experiencing increases in crime and homicides. Hardly a day goes by where we learn of a carjacking, robbery or murder. Baltimore has had seven years of over 300 homicides and seems to be headed for another. The stories associated with the senseless killings gives one to pause and reflect on what is happening in our country. I think about it a lot and even though I no longer live in Baltimore, I am just minutes away. I believe most people just want the madness to stop. 

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Written on March 29, 2022

Submitted by larrymize on March 30, 2022

Modified on April 16, 2023

42 sec read
116

Lawerence E. Mize

Lawerence E. Mize was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1949. At the age of seventeen he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a medical corpsman with the 101st Airborne Division. A month after his eighteenth birthday he began his one year tour of duty in the Republic of Vietnam. He served with the "Screaming Eagles," of the 101st Airborne Division as a combat medic with A Company of the 2/501st Airmobile Division. On completing his military obligation he returned home to Baltimore and joined the Baltimore City Police Department at the age of twenty-one. Mize went on to serve with the Baltimore City Police Department for the next twenty-nine years retiring as a Sergeant in 1999. Mize then went on to become a District Court Bailiff in 2003. He left that position in 2018 and now likes to spend his time riding his bicycle, writing poems, and traveling with his wife Sandy whom he has been married to for the last forty-eight years. They have two sons, Lawerence Jr. and Nicholas. Mize has self-published six books of poetry since 1997, to include two works about his experiences in Vietnam, "Tortured Soul and Dead Men Calling, (both published by American Literary Press, Inc. Baltimore, Maryland), both of which helped Lawerence deal with the painful memories of Vietnam; a book of poems he dedicated to his wife, Sandy, titled "Thoughts of You," (Tate Publishing & Enterprises, Mustang, Oklahoma); a book of poems about life and dying titled "Reflections," (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, North Charleston, SC); a collection of poems about Mize's life growing up in Baltimore, his experiences in Vietnam, and speak to the riot and looting in Baltimore in 2015 and the aftermath with all its violence in the city since titled, "My Long Journey In Baltimore," (Dorrance Publishing Co. Pittsburgh, PA); and his latest work in 2021 titled "Baltimore...A City Besieged," in which Mize takes us on a poetic tour of Baltimore and provides us with a chilling account of what life is like for Baltimore's residents with over 300 homicides in the last six years. more…

All Lawerence E. Mize poems | Lawerence E. Mize Books

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