NJ Transit II

"Cool dudes" write graffiti (circa 2007)
in the vantage of commuters
advertising stylishly
their aerosol skills
embossed and dropped shadows
like Free Public WiFi (you snake)
or rhymes which are like bombs
to some rappers

everyday, I'm hustling
after past-tense trains
in the ratty Brooklyn subway slips
managed by higher authorities

New York
pitches a tent of it's own mither
while a toilet in transit pleads
"Do not drink the water"
to a born-again communist
who's urine smells of coffee, suspiciously

orange cones perched on the cherry pickers (of our youth) like deposed Diocletian cardinals
disowned as both son and business partner

this is horrible weather for birds
they love it anyway

in your hands you barely cup the faint shards of a broken muse

bring on the West Nile virus
we cross our mountains
in Toyota Rubicons
fully loaded (or: with all the options)

you look like the hell I don't believe in
you smell like a north western funeral
you speak like a lawn-mower
which someone mistakenly gave a cell phone

the bricks are stained as ever
they grow beards of miserable soot

the 12:25 Jersey local
rolls on the bygone bones of the New Deal
but the dealer is cheating
and just the bones know it