Police Poem Hidden in Plain Site/Sight/Cite (A little chapbook "here before your very eyes")

Evening before last, i was working on some of my "rubBEings"--using letters and forms from parked crane, trucks, trailer parked by and on open field where a house had been razed . . .


and now is all dirt covered in parts by gravel----



where soon an 11 storey condo and some office spaces will be built---



after much protest by the neighborhood--


a police car pulled slowly up--a big policeman came over to speak with me--asking many questions--my ID was inside the coffee shop on the corner--i showed him the "rubBEings"--



another police squad car pulled up, another policeman came over . . . neighbors had called with a complaint--that a "Black man" was trying to steal tires--(me making "rubBEings" looked this way to the caller)--and maybe stealing tools or copper pipings or--"something"--



"He says his ID is in the coffee place and they know him and that he works on art here. The bookstore, too--says they know him and that he works out here. And lot of other people, too. " "Who's working tonight at the coffee shop?" "Diane and Tiara."

Fortunately this time the police realized right away how wrong the caller was--(how could i steal tires bigger than i am?--notice though that the caller assumed a "criminal" must be "Black" though is mainly white area)--and everything was straightened out--



Except they said this (the poem just above these words) was the last piece i could work on there unless in the daytime--when others around--though is a site passed by many people all times of day and night--

"People are full of fear these days," one of the police said. "And your working the way you do scares them." "It sucks but that's the way it is, " said the other policeman. "Next time you might get a cop who will take you downtown. Too bad. That's nice work you do."

I walked a couple blocks away and went back to work on some other found materials from a huge dumpster near the construction site. The world is full of materials for "rubBEings" . . .
Fearful callers, police cars and men--even if taken downtown--inside the rooms there are things to work with--how can there be any stopping that which flows in all that is?

"One cannot hide from that which never sets."--Heraclitus
For it is everywhere hidden in plain site/sight/cite--david-baptiste chirot