My commute consists of two parts
the Illiad & the Odyssey

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Advacing up the stairs of
the 7th Street Metro Station,
I listen enraptured through headphones
as Doris Day movingly sings
a ballad with lush string accompaniment

Nearing the top and approaching
the 1 pm Los Angeles sidewalk
my reverie is shattered as I
sight a woman crouching over and
pissing thereupon.

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A midday walk in
the neighborhood,
a light humid mist
settled upon the
boughs overhead,
I realize that
these streets were
once a forest, and
not so long ago at
that

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The first Americans
found a verdant land
to explore, ripe with
nature's mystery;
our contemporary landscape.
with its urban decay,
seems hardly more
comprehensible