If you got the time

     Foxcroft Heights
neighborhood est. 1938
     commuter mass relocation
16G 16J 16H 16X express
     homes along the pike
Highway horizon I-395
     on Saturdays
a skeleton frame
     no money to make
no money to spend
     US-244 West
Arlington Alexandria
     around the bend
Annandale up next.

Telephone Poll C1017 HJ6

Berries grow but won't
                    be eaten

Grass grows but can't
                    be cut

10:17 am
                    the time I was born.

Silent in the glow of a yellow roadside

a street and its cars;

I am alone
     unknown

a sidewalk splits the road
     a wooden porch
          fenced off
               splits concrete
                    removed

sun breaks the horizon
     yields to night
          oh the day is lost
               silenced

I am silent
     I will not speak
          not ever
               not now

Green street signs face me
     respond in weary silence
          no directions
               they will not speak
                    not ever
                         almost never

Commuted

sick heat of bus
fumes
rush hour traffic on
Columbia Pike.

          --She stepped off exhausted
          no A/C on bus
          far from home on winding
          pentagon trails
          carrying too much in the
          summer heat 90+ degrees
          pretty dress shimmer in low
          sun's light, tanned skin--      a rippled image
                                                   in the dying day

air brake scream
green lights of traffic light
movement hulking chrome
bodies moving south west
another day
another time

a distant car horn.

Columbia river pk. st. rd.

'ey kid these fingers work too

fast to worry about which comes 

first g or n or what thought makes sense

corner coffee shop

side of columbia pike

buses pull up at regular intervals

16H 16J 16X rundown 

character wait on saturday 

head for part-time shit-time jobs

at the other end of the pike

maybe skyline city whatever 

that is of where I don't know

Barista tells me his just

found some books and records

he'd lost, been lost for 15 years

that's a hole in the heart

too think to imagine--I think

of my copy of A Farewell to Arms--

still not sure where the damn things gone--

coffee breaks my reverie his triumph

spring wind wails woutside where

wallowing well I walk to the car can't

stomach the microwave mecca masterpiece

of Bob n' Edith's shit slop spectacular

calls itself home cooking in the atomic age,

tv dinner relative reality neon orange vomit cheese

masquerade. I can't even turn my head disdainful 

I just wretch, but the coffee helps the ice the blue sky damn

just fuck it and blow the red, no cops no yellow no light

I don't stop I don't give a fuck, I can't stand that rotten smell

coast on home sailor squid down the hill

tunnel under 395 cars swish silent saturday swell

I'm almost relieved at the stop, I take it in stride

bus' break sput sput swush psssssssssss

I'll be taking that gig come monday

either way the world ends--putz--I got a book 

waiting in this here mailbox, a cat at home,

coffee in hand--Now I wonder,

ya know, I'm thinking, just about 

what some of those lost book title were.