"commuters" poems
The city is a grid
of lights projected
by man-made mountains
built of glass and steel;
they reflect, distorted
off the glass surface
of Lake Michigan.
Good morning
The sun rises
with heavy-eyed commuters,
homes filling with
the smell of coffee;
yesterday’s events are
brought inside, rolled
up in a blue plastic bag.
Soon the traffic on the Dan Ryan
will turn the stretch of road
into a temporary parking lot.
Life enters the veins
of downtown;
it heads down Michigan Avenue
to the heart of The Loop.
The ferris wheel at Navy Pier
begins to turn hypnotically,
attracting all walks of life.
A Muslim passes a Christian
on the street;
they smile at each other;
their backgrounds don’t matter.
Someone is calling;
someone is answering.
Today is the best day for one,
the worst day for another.
The day does its job to go on
Chicago fills its lungs,
then exhales life back home.
The sun colors buildings,
traces of day
to be soon replaced
by the form of lit office windows.
From a plane passing over,
the grid is a chessboard
waiting for the next day,
the next game.
Nov 13, 2012
Nov 13, 2012 at 2:07 AM UTC
Supposing that we lit some candles.
One for each person on this earth,
we would blow one out at a funeral
and light one up at a birth.
The world would grow darker
every time we lost a fighter
but with every new born baby
it gets just that bit brighter.
If you travelled into a city that was dark and gritty
you'd know that they didn't have many in their committee.
But.. If the light was brilliant and bright
it would send a beaming message throughout the night.
Saying "We are here! And we are alive!"
Not wanting to be alone we endeavor to collide
and form one giant, shining beacon
that burns so fierce we're sure it can't weaken
We sparkle and crackle and bend nature to our whim
the mighty fire so strong it just had to gave in.
With it we forged iron and buildings, cars and computers
and lit paths of lives to guide commuters
We lit up the universe as far as we could see
Improving our lives greatly with technology
obsessed with our professed fixture on practicality
we completely forgot about morality
Our fires forged weapons which we aimed next door
In one swift movement we saw the effects of war
6,000,000 candles extinguished
over arguments on which light is most distinguished
So fixated on this light we blinded our eyes
and the candle smoke filled the skies.
We thought candles were good, they elevated us higher
but now all we have is thick smoke and fire.
The fire consuming all in its route
the root of our lives follow suite.
It's eating the oxygen and burning the grass
the sand is melting and forming to glass.
The glass it shatters into a thousand pieces
more candles are lighting, the temperature increases
The resources decline, as do the candles
buried in ash a hundred thousand scandals.
Now only a few lit candles remain
as they slowly melt and fade away.
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 1:39 PM UTC
The Second Daniel, thought to overcome
Four more Visions conjured out of his Wand
Without reply does he renounce his Sum,
Later added Better Digits on hand
Mindly notice how this Social Train plays
Slowly taking Commuters off the Tracks
Which this Conductor sadly he displays
And the Tickets he hoped he would get back
You were not the First. This I can assure
But Sincerity a Note only you choose
This Soul, called Will, independent from cure
Balanced on Scales gives your Career a Boost.
If Reason be Creed, then Failure is Heart
Sir, not all Jewels you can just Compart.
Mar 11, 2013
Mar 11, 2013 at 4:06 AM UTC
He is
walking the white line
his arm a repetitious arc
sounding a single tone
timed to the pace
of hiking-boot feet
treading the pavement.
Saffron robes have grayed
over long meditative miles
witnessed by curious commuters
riding the pendulum away
from his purposeful daily counterpoint
the freedom held
in rhythmic ritual
how the mind stills and gathers
in the swinging blur of hand and stick.
I roll the window down
seeking precious solace
as I hurtle past
knowing
he walks for me too
I want to stop the car
fall in behind
feel the timeless drum
the stillness of salvation.
Jan 12, 2016
Jan 12, 2016 at 12:30 PM UTC
Covent Garden.
Midnight.
Revellers and tourists combined.
The market is heaving.
Last trains are leaving.
An eclectic mix to broaden the mind.
Covent Garden.
2am.
The place is pretty quiet.
Pubs have closed.
Clubs.... God knows.
The tourists have frozen their riot.
Covent Garden.
4am.
A drunkard stumbles by.
Flood lit shops.
A rickshaw stops.
The backdrop against a reddish
sky.
Covent Garden.
6am.
Blokes lurk down Langley street.
The glint of a blade.
A blur in the shade.
Lava tip of cigarette falls to a strangers feet.
Covent Garden.
8am.
Commuters emerge from underground stations.
Workers prepare.
Visitors beware.
Pick pockets attracted like gravitation.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 2:30 PM UTC
The clock struck midnight
With an informative pang
I couldn't face it's music
So I turned counterclockwise
But time kept moving forward
As my wisdom dissipated
Bad times I anticipated
As I wandered through life
Burdens grew
Weight added with each step
My feet started to sink into the ground
So I got in my car
And drove
And kept driving
The more I traveled
The more I witnessed
The less I talked
As I grappled with the futility and necessity of communication
The clock warned of night's approach
I decided to continue driving
Luminous fireflies pelted my vessel
Their lamps exploding upon impact against my vehicle
The ability to destroy light
Exhilarated me
And I became addicted
To extinguishing that which shines
Until darkness flooded my engine
And an abysmal order was made by my abyssal odor
I had to exit my vehicle
And consult a mechanic
He explained my engine wouldn't work
Unless my windows were down
Which solved my darkness problem
But those ****** pests pervaded my car
Their locust glow disoriented me
The slight variations of their unique displays
Manufactured chaos within the light
My eyes grew accustomed to entropy
My brain grew accustomed to impairment
Commuters noticed my erratic driving
And offered to assist me
By attempting to ram me off the road
But the impenetrable light created a force field
Impalas couldn't run through
For my light bugs too much
Buffering me from others
And driving others from me
Leaving me alone
As a giant pulsating light that never stops moving
Is this how a star is born?
Jul 4, 2017
Jul 4, 2017 at 3:13 AM UTC
the cherry blossom blooms brightly
nature smiles on deserted streets
leaving a carpet of pink to colour
the desolate lonely landscape
it's like an empty welcome home
begging for the normality of children
playing among the flowers, commuters
enjoying the colour of a bright spring
morning on their way to work where
work is no longer an option
the trees will fruit from the poison earth
only the birds will enjoy their bounty
man no longer a part of what was once
a home, a life, a sanctuary
Mar 4, 2023
Mar 4, 2023 at 3:46 PM UTC
It happened at 4:05 PM at Jamaica Station
Anticipating a LIRR connection arrival of when
A woman answered questions of man
The woman was totally high at her command
She walked to one side of the platform
The drugged up woman dropped her plastic Coke Cola bottle on the ground
The woman then walked to the other side of the platform and then stepped off
The next then anybody knew, she was laying flat on the tracks
A multitude of commuters that pulled her up
Luckily no train came
Her life yet remained
It is the Lord who gave her another chance
God had mercy so she could continue in advance
Fate could have been death
But the message states, “There is still life left”
Walking unknown
This is what life has shown
The woman has a drug crave
Jul 23, 2014
Jul 23, 2014 at 3:52 AM UTC
The radio clicks the worn out song
of days gone by and governments gone wrong.
Its static, the rolling of clouds before a thunderstorm.
The newsreaders rustling papers,
High pressure systems on the move.
The hush of the people as they gather to listen
Breath bated, held back by obedient tongues
The bulletins are nicotine bullets,
they're so incredibly easy to get hooked on.
News comes down the wire like commuters on the tube
Jostled and shunted along.
Through underground networks it spreads
With absolute efficiency
And yet the platform on which it departs is more than often wrong.
Outside the park swings are empty,
There is nothing unusual about that
But the kids sit by speakers with their hands over their ears
The high frequency waves dance around them.
This day is marked down as one they wish they could forget.
The headlines blazed into their minds,
More dead.
Oppressed.
Injustice.
Religion.
Elections.
Disasters.
Tornadoes.
Politicians flustered.
Corruption.
Famine.
And Hollywood Blockbusters.
And now we move on to the traffic
Two hundred more just come in from Pakistan
They say there's a pile up in Europe
There's an awful lot of wreckage on the road
and now they are left with no place to call home.
The M1 is running slow again, no surprise in that
Row after row of red brake lights
Join them together to make constellations
And you have your very own metropolitan galaxy.
Because who needs the stars when we have brake lights!
And who needs the moon when we have Big Ben.
Down the telephone lines comes a battalion of lies
“Honey... I'm going to have to work late.'
If you listen very closely to the nine o'clock news
You can hear the reporters wristwatch
And every five seconds that tick on top of his pulse
Marks another slice of news coming in.
The little hand chases the big hand
You cannot tell the time with just one.
The details escape somewhere between
The real world and what's put down in papers.
The trouble with black and white
Is that you miss all the shades of grey
And if you've never seen stars
Then brake lights, are just brake lights
And disaster is just another day.
Sep 21, 2013
Sep 21, 2013 at 9:46 AM UTC
Heartbeats and concrete,
Skyscrapers and commuters,
Dreams and believers.
Apr 23, 2015
Apr 23, 2015 at 6:23 AM UTC
I am the oxygen running
Through the veins of London,
I am weaving my way through
The crowds of people,
Commuters,
Tourists,
Family,
I feel the wind
Of the trains
Pulsating through the air,
Running its fingers through my hair
And over my body,
There metallic cries cascading through the tunnels,
Where will I go?
The Northern line to Tottenham Court Road?
The Central line to Liverpool Street station?
There is only one destination I yearn for,
Above the concrete,
The tiles and wires,
The pipelines and emptiness,
I want to be at home
With you again.
Jan 2, 2014
Jan 2, 2014 at 9:38 AM UTC
(i see) two scions dance in traffic: sun and moon,
sky and stars; God’s two heirs
dancing in traffic as if they weren’t demigods but
small maya birds - transfixed
mortals, fighting to keep away from the blinding
might their status affords them.
as His children their world and its light is for their taking,
of which they can feed - or not:
they go on instead like hungry wolves, next to I, rising
(sidelined, falling) flagging down jeeps
in the thick of the Vinzons Hall jeepney stop. They bark loud
and cheerily to keep idle; from unravelling
their wax-worn strings. They are birds guided by concrete routes,
those yearning to feel its bleakness
in each syllable creeping up their gold-and-marble throats:
the soft choke of exhaust smoke
and the rosiness of their gaunt in the face of all-knowing fate:
that of snatching from death
a world not theirs. They declare: “Perseus we are not, and
Janus we choose.” They shuttlling
commuters obscure and without fuss and without end
to and fro, where they come
they spit on the universe in baggy basketball shorts
Dec 4, 2016
Dec 4, 2016 at 10:42 AM UTC
Shop fronts, curbs and pavements.
Bin men wear hearts on their sleeve.
Coffee shops, bakers and jewellers.
A homeless man searching reprieve.
Adverts and billboards shine bright.
The cleaners have swept the streets bare.
Commuters and tourists combined.
This city called London we share.
Marching to a steady beat
Marching to a steady beat
The pavement are veins
People the blood
The city the heart
Pumping the beat
Pumping the beat
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 5:51 PM UTC
Commuters on a train
Going to work every day
Too fast the tracks say
They cause the train to sway
As they wobble and stray
Too fast the tracks say
As the brakes start to fail
As they scream out and pray
Too fast the tracks say
As the train goes off the rail
As the trains bursts into flame
Too fast the tracks say
As the train fills with smoke
As they all start to choke
Too fast the tracks say
As the conductor wakes up
A little too late
Too fast the tracks say
Commuters all dead
I warned you I said
Too Fast...
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 8:09 PM UTC
9:43 on a frigid clear morning, the morning I made the conscious decision to stand as far as possible from the dropoff to the train tracks, and an older gentleman next to me, newspaper folded, saying "It's a cold one today, isn't it". And I smiled in agreement and I drank my overpriced coffee, fogging up the sky.
10:13 on the train, unwashed windows turning the sun dirty-bright, and I didn't drift off for it as all the men in suits and flatlined mouths slowly did.
And 11:36 in the City, a man I had decided not to love and his sarcastic appreciation of modern art, and me laughing endlessly. And this man showing me his secret hideouts and telling me secret stories, stories that you earn. I had decided not to love him, though, and so I didn't. It was easy because he had made no such call.
And 5:52 in his marble high-rise and his bed that was bigger than my bed, on it, he told me he had decided not to love me too. And then we kissed, and kissed, with nothing-to-lose moving our hands and mouths all over each other. Nothing-to-lose tangling his sheets and relaxing our heartbeats, and making them audible.
8:04 on the night of the morning I began to fear the third rail and the whoosh of the New Haven line, a bruise on my neck and my kiss-swollen mouth flashed red and dirty-bright to the post-commuters, and the man I forgot not to love still in the city, and the feeling of peaceful but irreversible damage heavy on my lap.
Jan 20, 2013
Jan 20, 2013 at 10:57 PM UTC
so... it's no longer enough that
i learn your language,
into a p.s. of conversational
etiquette -
addressing the confrontational
assertion of the existence
of orthography,
minding your, Germanic,
metaphysical ********
and then...
i'm, supposed, to,
listen to your average citizen,
dictating rules,
like some sort of king?!
i'll drink a beer, walking
past the east ham central mosque...
and i'll be like:
getting the **** eyes ******
you stare -
in reply: you know what?
do it... **** it... do it...
make me a ******* martyr...
but i'm going to drink this beer,
feeding a solidarity of the 7/7 commuters...
hence my teasing...
once i'll burn scissors and
craft a tattoo on my arm...
once i'll put out a cigarette
on my left hand's knuckle...
the everyday englishman who "thinks"
he's king...
i'm thinking... plum hues
to replace mascara... with a *******
fist...
no... private property,
is private property...
now i'm gagging for a fist
frisking! i'm less trigger happy,
and more, european,
i.e. knuckles itchy!
i want to juggernaut something
down...
and then start biting into it!
any obnoxious englighman,
being a **** will satiated my
palette.
GNASH GNASH GNASH...
i want... a chance...
to scoop clean...
the "riddle" of meaty chicken
schnacks of drum-sticks...
fiddle fiddle, fiddle me something...
i want to engage in a 1, 2,
punch & bite something...
attempting to relieve itself
from physical confrontation,
having exhausted its verbal allowance.
Aug 7, 2018
Aug 7, 2018 at 10:03 PM UTC
I
I am him, the man seeking solitude
I am him, the boy annoyed afraid and hates being
Alone
A flea, fleeing man traversing
fleeting moments.
Burning away oil, soaked fleece.
North Face coming home feels more and more of a disgrace
North Star
I want to follow that sweet shoulder with that
brainwashing
LOGO
LOGOS save me logo log logarithm love
My jacket pulled over her legs
freezing she says
shivering chills
Withdrawal, hence we are en route to the corner to get well.
sitting silent and innocent (comparatively with the deranged driver).
in the backseat as this driver drives lives nowhere and the only place we all want to go
everywhere
all at once
into oblivion we go sullen eyes and veins soaked with ****** and *******
I am him
the man looking in the mirror with disdain
I am him
The man afraid of what he sees.
Maybe dolorful colorful Colorado can save
Him.
This is my Howl
This is my Purge
save me save me
save
me
me
I fear of Art becoming dead to me
If fear of God dying to me
Dan is dead
II
The neighborhood is dim
snow falls
I smoke on the porch
5 years before
what you just read
Dan is still alive
and as I smoke on the porch
snow falls
I watch the people
commuters
college
professors
middle class
lower class
intelligent
stupid
rich
poor
white
black
doctors
trash man
*** heads
junkies
young girls
grandparents
my community
America
These people enclosed in there cars on their faces just
regret
anger
disappointment
I start to wish there was something I could offer them
but I have nothing myself
only
fog of dreams in my head
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 8:37 PM UTC
For the Disney print princess
who knows what she's about,
who finds fascinating worlds within dust cover jackets,
who sends smiles in parenthesis; lost love brackets
over classroom mid-drifts,
a bare silence interrupted by pure kindness;
for who walks in noise behind inaudible
commuters from this station to that station
all the way home and back out again on her family vacation,
who can match and pair t-shirts and jeans with
bowler hat crowns from the palace of queens,
who, for all we know, could eat with elbows on tables
and read not prose, but short fiction fables,
who wouldn’t hold doors open or say thank you
to bus men and their drivers,
who might smoke away her pay
with great plumes almost every day,
who might not be the girl I thought she was.
Jul 9, 2013
Jul 9, 2013 at 3:18 PM UTC
Decorations are up
hung from fishing wire,
fishing for good luck.
There’s Christmas on her neck
and as she stretches out in front of me
a wake of cinnamon decks the halls.
It remains and lingers,
falls away past nostrils and
turns to festive well-wishes.
The market is in full swing
wrapped up tight in large scarves,
like a low cut sling cradling the cold.
Winter has the streets in its hold,
the wind is sour, bitter to taste,
and punters, commuters, Asian lost-tourists walk in haste.
Shop floors are warmed by radiators
hung above their wide open doors:
let the heat out, let the customers in.
And when the mid-November light dims
and the council gets past the
everlasting electrical admin,
streetlamp sticks will light and spark,
sending effulgent embers down onto
the Cambridge cobbles.
Children will peer wide eyed into windows
remembering names for their lists,
hoping to unwrap them as gifts later on down the line.
Adults, some probable parents and others newly-wed together,
enjoy the festivities, the weather, the bespoke crafts
bought from Argos sold as Handmade Swedish Chairs
And do they care? No.
It’s Christmas in Cambridge and
winter is settling in.
Dec 25, 2013
Dec 25, 2013 at 7:38 AM UTC
Every morning I must slay a mighty rusted dragon. His jaws gape as he waits for me. I climb his belly slowly, but persistently. When I reach his mouth I throw myself in. I burst from his stomach and slide down his back and he lies with his wounds and waits for tomorrow. I will slay him again today. These dragons are everywhere, waiting to be destroyed every morning by commuters and diabetics and dialysis patients. We must grit our teeth as the needle pierces the skin or as the engine starts again. We take that bitter pill and emerge victorious. But to what end? The dragon will be waiting the following morning as he always has, as he always will. It is the curse of the modern man. Each day we will slay this dragon until one of us is too weak to fight.
But I know, too, that this dragon is necessary. He is the grain of salt in my morning that seasons the bike ride down his back. I have learned to enjoy riding through the rusted iron bridge that is his throat, and yes, even the climb I must endure to reach it. Each day I must slay this dragon. I must. It is for me that he exists, not the other way around. And I will slay him each day until I am struck by an automobile or die of a blood disease.
So when I rise tomorrow, I will look him in the eye and he will wink. And I’ll know that he is not just a hill capped with a rusted iron bridge. He is the plight of modern men. He is the eternal struggle that must be, else life would be tedium. and we need each other, him and I.
When I wake, I will rise and slay him again.
And again.
And again.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 1:30 AM UTC
He awakes from deep slumber
to find his beloved missing by his side,
again.
Casting off the shroud of dark, dense clouds
He dons the black cloak of night and begins his frenzied search
for Her - the perpetually elusive one :
He scours the skies, cuts through frosty winds,
roves through the infinity of stars desperately seeking Her,
looks down :
at the lonesome road abandoned by commuters
that treaded upon her all day long
at a dingy alleyway where a girl solicits her new owner
for the night - to be used, abused, misused
at the young woman storming her way back home
distraught from a break-up with her Casanova of a lover -
- all this, while She trails behind him
in his quest for love, silently accompanying him
as he drifts over unknown lands,
hoping his agony abates, wanting to tell him
she is there, he could see her.
She, who lends meaning to his being,
his silvery, mesmerising
Moonlight.
Feb 9, 2013
Feb 9, 2013 at 5:47 PM UTC
Standing in the tunnel
at Eighth and Pine station,
I survey westbound commuters
waiting across the tracks -
standing arms akimbo
or leaning on marble walls.
A well-suited young man paces the platform -
cell phone pressed to his cheek.
[Passengers stand clear of the
edge of the platform at all times]
Rushing in from the east,
a gleaming white chariot
arrives - pauses - resumes
leaving the far platform vacated
as if by alien abduction
From the left a blazing light
pierces the tunnel
and the Shiloh – Scott eastbound
halts and snaps open its doors.
crossing the threshold.,
I claim a seat by the aisle.
[Please stand clear! Doors are closing]
With eyes half shut I scan the crowd:
uniformed workers wearing ID's,
a toddler’s arms and legs
dangling off his mother's lap,
An elderly couple talking softly.
The soft clatter of wheels
and the gentle side-to-side sway
rocks us like a cradle -
memories of the long day
melting into thoughts of home.
[Fairview Heights Station.
Doors open to my right]
The lady with the toddler steps off.
A trio of teenage girls
fresh from the mall
seek and find empty seats -
filling the rear of the car
with the music of their chatter.
Streetlamps scatter shadows
over parking lots.
The unseen country side
slips by under cover of darkness.
Headlights gleam like jewels
waiting for crossing gates to lift
[Next stop Belleville Station
Doors open to my left]
I clutch my lap top,
work my way to the door
and wait for the train’s full stop
Stepping out into the frost filled air
I pause to watch the sleak white chariot
vanish on the eastern horizon.
September, 2006
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 6:29 AM UTC
Train moves jerkingly north
Commuters ignore each other
Waiting for days end
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 11:18 AM UTC
Sleeping commuters leave
Ghostly auras amidst
The foggy plastic windows.
They slumber through
The booming snore
Of exhaust-pipes, choking smoke.
Silence. Or closest to.
Even stopped, the Bus roars,
Patiently brooding, growling,
As a wolf in the underbrush
Watching the crimson lights, sharp
Like blood on a pavement.
A small cat, uncollared,
Sprints across the road
But is pounced upon.
The wheels creak,
Commuters stir, and the Bus
Stalks away into the night.
Nov 26, 2018
Nov 26, 2018 at 5:23 PM UTC
Here I stand upon this stop,
It's my ritual every day,
With all the other zombies,
Tired and looking grey,
The thought of public transport,
Irritates my brain,
As the bus arrives at my stop,
Packed like a commuter train,
The usual faces look away,
Thinking please don't sit with me,
I park my **** upon their bags,
I pretend I didn't see,
The huffing and the puffing,
People late for work,
The woman sitting next to me,
Thinking...he's an effing ****
Trying not to look at her,
Or the hairy man in front,
I look at the condensation,
As her elbow gives a shunt,
Getting up from my seat,
Needs balance and an awkward grin,
The bus brakes late upon this stop,
As she heels me in the shin,
My eyes welling up,
As I let out a massive ****
The poor old lady gags,
Pulling up her winters scarf,
Embarrassed by my actions,
I pressed the button quick,
The odour travelled up my nose,
I think that i'll be sick
Fighting past the commuters,
Trying to get some air,
I knew it was too late....
Throwing up on some ladies hair,
So now I drive to work,
Past the Bus Stop that she waits,
We are married with two children,
Some people call it fate,
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 5:13 PM UTC