Firey giants inhaled salty air
Around the wharves and docks,
Then raged towards Pioneer Square,
Circling several city blocks.
They ate buildings in a single gulp:
The Commercial Mill, its pulp,
Two Saloons, and the Opera house.
Operating hoses, mortals douse
Buildings now, hoping the giant
Fires themselves will die later,
Sparks not growing any greater,
No longer defied, or defiant.
Then a hot wind rose. Water slowed.
Once again, flames explode.
Götterdämmerung!
July 8, 2012 by at 9:28 am
Happy Birthday Dear Pushkin
July 7, 2012 by at 1:29 pm
On Pushkin’s birthday, eighteen-eighty-
Nine (ninety years old the bard
Would be, but for romantic fate he
Gave up his life, a cast-off shard
Cast off too soon), Seattle kindled
From gluey scrap where sharpies swindled
The downtown down-and-outers out
Of weekly pay for Skid Road clout
With seamstress’ skirts and garters seeming
Undone for doing what we do
When left to our devices, through
The rise and fall, the devil’s steaming
Pile of what you will, a choir
Of angels singing round the fire.
Murphy’s Distress
July 6, 2012 by at 10:05 am
One never knows when disaster
Will strike, and acting Fire Chief
James Murphy, unable to master
His nerves, often sighed in grief
At the ticking clock. Every moment …
Now? So when Chief Collins went
To the convention in San Francisco,
Murphy sat and waited for a blow
To be struck by malicious Fate.
Waiting, but hardly ready—
Fear was becoming one long, steady
Drag off an opium pipe. Great
Men find their destiny in a split
Second; Murphy quailed and quit.
Moran’s Command
July 5, 2012 by at 3:26 pm
(I think JOB may be winding up the Moran saga, but maybe this could be inserted into an earlier place in the sequence)
Mayor Robert Moran took command from acting Fire Chief James Murphy (ironically, Chief Josiah Collins was at a fire-fighting convention in San Francisco), who was reportedly “distraught”.
“Like carrying coals to Newcastle,”
said Mayor Moran, hearing that Chief
Collins had handed the conn to his vassal,
James Murphy, before traveling lief
To San Francisco for a fire-fighting
Convention. Grabbing a cigar and biting
The end, he then paused, lit match in hand.
“Get me Murphy,” he growled; then fanned
The flame to smoke. It should be so easy,
He thought, then roared: “Never mind!
I’ll go myself!” and left his hat behind.
Murphy was at his desk, looking queasy,
When the mayor arrived. “Out of the chair!”
Barked Moran. Met with a blank stare.
Rosario
July 5, 2012 by at 2:01 pm
Her pitching angles swept and scalloped
As oyster shells of yesterday –
So grand a vessel all but galloped
Out through the foggy rain the bay
Would drape and veil across the water.
A wife? A mother? Mistress-lover?
Rosario was all of these
(Though which of these could money please…?).
Upon Seattle’s ashen sorrows
I built her shingled eaves to shield
My joys – though glory would but yield
To tantalizing time’s tomorrows…
To think a mansion held such grief –
Rosario, you clever thief!
Saloon Closed
July 2, 2012 by at 6:52 pm
Mayor Moran declared an 8:00 p.m. curfew that night
and ordered all remaining saloons closed until further notice.
The mayor in his wisdom, turning
From flames outside his window’s view,
Declared that—with this fire burning
The whole damn town by nail and screw—
The citizens should not be drinking
From wells of fire water (thinking
That booze might ease the pain of ash
Or make a fire line of cash
For workman’s wages turned to embers);
No, better call the night a day,
Let ashes cool and dreams be gay:
Of wet Novembers and Decembers
And sitting by the fireside,
Hot buttered rum, and Christmastide.
Moran Sells Out
July 2, 2012 by at 3:23 pm
SEATTLE, Washington, March 17. – Robert Moran, President of the Moran Brothers’ Company, builders of the battleship Nebraska, announced to-day the sale of the control of their company to Eastern capitalists associated with the Griscoms of Philadelphia….A new corporation will be organized bearing the title of the Moran company. – New York Times, March 18, 1906
But money scuttles memory, hollow
As sunken loss of love for ships.
I sold my interest – do you follow? –
And never – did I? – came to grips
With what came next: The day of purchase
Was all whimsy on the surface –
The auction hammer fell between
That Paddy’s Day of good poitín
And holy Joseph’s feast of somber
Remorse… That sale between the saints
Forever scorches more than paints
The old Seattle I remember.
The man Moran had saved the town –
The name Moran sails on alone.
Moran Contemplates Virgins and Dynamos on Orcas Island
July 2, 2012 by at 3:15 pm
Between the blood of wars, I lived on
Beyond the memories of fire
Because the doctors said, “A gift, then,
If you can live another year.”
Now I sit out here, Orcas Island,
And hold the keys in my right hand
That used to open mansion door
And furnace hatch – and fateful war,
All gates of horn. What’s more lasting?
The holocausts where iron forged
My steel and brick, or fires that purged
The town for these it next was cast in?
Tonight, my humble hearth expires –
Seattle steams with Vulcan’s fires.
Rat Town Burns
June 28, 2012 by at 4:44 pm
No one got hurt in the fire, but it was reported that
one million rats were consumed in the flames.
They say a million rats laid down
Their lives the day Seattle blazed
To ash. The town within the town
Asleep: nocturnal rats unfazed
By daytime noises gone awry —
Such dreams of fish and apple pie
In ovens, crusts and marmalades
In garbage cans for midnight raids
Danced through, from cell to cell, their small
Uncluttered rodent brains as flame
Consumed with wagging tongue the lame
And fat ones first but nearly all
In crackling bites. The lithe ones woke
But only soon enough to choke.
Robert Moran: Digging Deep
June 19, 2012 by at 10:58 am
They says I saved Seattle, keel
And hull – I says it was just business
To churn the burning paddlewheel…
Whatever else ya say it was,
The dollars, raising sails, maintained
What followed in their wake. Not selfish
Nor selfless – I’m as self-contained
As a geoduck. (Puget’s own shellfish,
I’ll clam up on the butter clams
I’ve stacked away.) If they ask ya
About Seattle gone to flames,
Forget the battleship Nebraska…
Did history judge my works? It spoke
Less light than heat – just blowing smoke.
Wiped Out
June 16, 2012 by at 9:45 am
The ruddy Kipling in a boat
Was touring Puget Sound the day
Seattle burned. He wrote a note
About the sight of soot that lay
Across the landscape like a smudge
Some Hand (divine? infernal?) left
Where once a city stood. The grudge
That Being held — to leave bereft
A town, wiped out, crossed out, erased —
Raised questions of the shape of Love;
And yet no souls were lost, the waste
A miracle uncertain of
Interpretation till the light
That failed became reborn in sight.
Corrections
June 14, 2012 by at 1:20 pm
The fire was caused by the overturning of a glue pot in Jim McGough’s paint shop, under Smith’s boot and shoe store, at the corner of Front and Madison streets in what was known as the Denny block. – Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 7, 1889.
The one who caused the conflagration is a Swede named Berg. He threw a bucket of water over a burning glue pot on the stove, which spread the flames at once. – Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 21, 1889
The chance incendiary who caused the recent disaster by fire was interviewed yesterday by a Post-Intelligencer representative who found him at work on a new building at the corner of Third and Jackson streets. His name is John E. Back… – Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 22, 1889
It could be me, it might be you,
But after smoke had settled fire,
It’s not McGough! It’s not McGough!
Please send the news by coach and wire!
The pot was there, the glue was hot
But after tears and other water,
The Swedes were there, but Berg was not!
Please correct with ink and blotter –
It’s wrong again? A lack? Alack!
Because when text is set and drying,
You must go back and say it’s Back!
Lest truth be typed to mean it’s lying.
So step from smoke and stomp out myths –
(Unless the shoe that’s used is Smith’s!).
Back Again
June 14, 2012 by at 12:49 pm
Some said that John E. left for good
And others swore him in Seattle
But those who knew him best withstood
The standard chit-chattering prattle
About a broken heart, a soul
Unhinged in some unknown location,
Because they knew in part and whole
He’d find the right commiseration
To handle grief and open wide
What honesty’s latent grace meant –
The fact that he could still confide
The fire in Victor Clairemont’s basement,
They wagered on a copper stack:
“He’ll be back – he’ll always be back.”
John Back
June 14, 2012 by at 9:55 am
John Back, a Swede with lanky beard,
Was heating glue and feeling sick.
The glue smell always made a weird
Sensation in his throat, like thick
Molasses spread on char-burned toast
Each time he took a breath or swallowed.
John turned his back and thought a ghost
Said something in his ear. What followed
Made John wheel back around to see
The glue, now hot and getting hotter,
Was boiling over — blazingly —
Which made John grab a pail of water.
The water spread the gluey flame
And John left town and changed his name.
The Great Seattle Fire
June 6, 2012 by at 1:53 pm
June 6, 1889
A pot was cooking down to havoc
And mucilage and everything
Became unglued. Seattle’s maverick
Adherence to its soul would bring
A yield, though – dividends beyond that
Which sizzling ruin spares and gets
A mayor to flee from fanning winds – what
Had vacated his cabinets….
(Some cabinets will hold possessions
And others hide the truth from sight;
From some will come enlightened lessons –
Like flames that strike and stick to night.)
Within a year the folk who heard
Returned, their stock increased a third.
The Great Seattle Fire in Onegin Sonnet Stanzas
June 6, 2012 by at 1:15 am
From The Writer’s Almanac:
It’s the birthday of the father of modern Russian literature: Aleksandr Pushkin (books by this author), born in Moscow (1799). He died at the age of 38, but in his brief life, he worked in nearly every literary form. His masterpiece was the verse novel Eugene Onegin (1833), about a man who kills his friend in a duel, and loses the one woman he loves.
Pushkin married Natalya Goncharova who was described at the time as the most beautiful woman in Russia. She had many admirers, including Czar Nicholas. One of her suitors was so persistent that Pushkin finally challenged him to a pistol duel in 1837. Pushkin died two days later.
The government initially tried to cover up the death, because Pushkin was so popular among common Russians that they thought his death might spark an uprising. When word of his death finally did get out, people all over the country went into mourning. One man, weeping openly in the street, was asked by a newspaper man if he had known Pushkin personally. He replied, “No, but I am a Russian.”
The Great Seattle Fire destroyed downtown Seattle on this date in 1889. The fire started in the basement of a cabinet shop on the corner of Front and Madison. An employee had set a pot of glue on top of a lit stove, and the glue caught fire. Over the next 18 hours, the blaze wiped out the town’s business district and waterfront. Miraculously, there were no human fatalities.
In a year’s time, Seattle had nearly been rebuilt. All the construction jobs sparked a population boom, and Seattle grew from a town of 25,000 into a full-fledged city of more than 40,000.
City of Shipwrights Rights Ship of City
Seattle’s pilot industry
Was holding steady to the rudder
Along a course to solvency
By navigating wind and water
Between each fire-flooded street:
It all seemed lost, marooned, deserted,
But Puget’s ship, from moor to cleat,
Refuted ruin and asserted,
“To save that craft, I’ll ply my craft!”
And, building holds – Behold! The buildings
Arose anew, both fore and aft,
And fortune blessed the city’s holdings
When, raised above a razed terrain,
It cast for mayor, Bob Moran.