my feet are taking me someplace I don't want to be.

they say
third times the charm but the fourth

is luckier.

traffic is
so pretty at night;
bokeh dance shrouded in black,
cars oscillating forward and back,
so enticingly juvenile are the lights.

at crossroads I
test the waters
concrete ocean;
I can stand on it.
I can almost taste
the blood
in my mouth,

I can almost wash
the blood
off my hands.

Choose another bitter morning routine -
whether from cold, coffee, or compression,
As in "man, I really need to just relax and decompress"
But without the last bit happening.
Choose to let it sink in until you can bite it off,
Choose the pressure because it feels like home,
Choose to dally, choose self-sabotage,
Choose kicking at the gears of your routine until
Something warps under the strain until
It fits like you never believed it would.
Choose the long way into work, a million faces
Nodding off behind their steering wheels,
The city's symphony still trying to get in tune,
Still trying to harmonize with, with, with, with
Whatever gets them to their job still sane, all
Trying to dance to beats only they can hear,
Howling out careworn verses they scrawled
By trailing their lives along the road:
The rhythm of the city is discord and hell.

Veins, veins,
length and breadth,
intertwined

beats to freedom
or desolation;
a terminus

lost on a circular.
An ebbing destination,
unchartered targets,

Follow the signs.
We are a one way street,
follow the signs

on software maps.
Stumped
by sequential lights

and us, caught
in a dragnet
within steely fish,

gasping for air,
choking on smoke,
bilious coughs,

hacking sputum,
gobbing phlegm globs
in interval gaps

within gridlocks;
nose to **** to
nose to ****.

The rage, the stares
the shouts, the finger,
the Grrr’s, the Rrrr’s,

the honks, the blares,
the bumper to bumper
expletive shares.

The rolling down,
the alighting,
the threats,

the fighting.
The falling down,
the separation,

reseating,
the rolling,
the thunder,

the trudge,
the stops, the starts.
Follow the signs,

follow the signs.
Robotic conveyors
for humans,

mechanical
fossil fueled
chariots,

grumbling, grunting,
wheee-ing and
screeching,

and screaming
and spewing
and chuffing

and guffing
black plumes,
air tarred,

veins, veins
clogged and bogged,
viscous, molasses,

liquid black blob.
Road fogged,
numbers logged.

Veins, veins,
follow the signs,
slow crawl.

Veins, veins,
follow the signs,
follow the signs,

sprawl.

Copyright Marc Hawkins 2017

Cars so close together
You can count their middle fingers,
Horns honking everywhere
Traffic is like an urban bomb scare.
People just don't know how to drive.
It's a wonder how they can survive.  

Tooting and beeping,
The human brain is sleeping,
It looks like, by and large
Lizard brains are in charge.
There are no cops around;
They’re in another part of town
Policing those who feel they need
To smoke that evil devil ****.

Meanwhile traffic does it's thing,
Increasing daily suffering.
It's part of what it means to be
Alive in today's society,
Driving hell bent like it matters
Leaving peace of mind in tatters.
Rush hour traffic is what is wrought
Like a bad cold the earth has caught.

You can’t avoid it altogether.
It’s like Twain said of weather.
You can talk about it every day
And do nothing about it either way.
So maybe not have everyone at once
Hitting the road like a silly dunce.
Couldn’t the employers take a clue;
Change their schedule an hour or two?

Maybe some would think it great
To start their journey hours late?
Some could go now and some then
And wait hours, then begin again,
The next batch could be on their way
And start out having a good mood day.
Or maybe we could all stay home
And leave the rest of the world alone

Zoned in traffic,
alone with the greatest hits of the 90s,
going 25 when I want to be going 90.
It's a two way repeat most days of the week,
and an unfulfilling repeat at that.
Back-tracking would hardly remedy.

Peddling into old things.