Survival

 It's 12:25 on a Saturday Morning and the streets are still loud with the roaring of the engines, the euphoric screamings of the girls and the cynical laughter of the boys.
The old women sit in their rocking chairs, knitting each stitch, forming innocence within webs of strings filled with untold mysteries and failed history.

The newly divorced father is finding his way to the local bar to drown his entire sorrow in scotch on the rocks while his 14 year old daughter watches the moon, wondering how her life could be so fucked so soon.
There's the teenage mom in labor, pushing out her entire future into a dangerous, complex, fearful world while the hopeful couple outside awaits the next 18 years of a life filled with puberty, love, and letting go.

We could never forget the boy who believes in the darkness of everything, feeling nothing left is worth waiting for as he pushes harder down on the pedal, speeding faster than everyone behind him but slower than light. Yet he is determined to beat even the fastest of things. Nature will not stop him.

The cop who's spent 15 years believing he is serving justice while his wife lays in the bed of his free lance brother.
A cracked out Jane, on her knees, begging for another fix while her rosary screams her faux faith in the higher power from above. Guess she's missing Mass tonight.

Rushing to the bathroom to cover those black and blues with a little too much foundation, hiding what daddy's oh so big hands could create yet demolish all at once.
It's apparent in this world.

Solutions, no one will ever find but we're still searching. Searching for what? A way out?
Haven't you figured it out yet? We're all stuck.
Dying one by one to live once again.

Reviews

[I.R.]

I loved all the different images and characters you give us. Each character has a unique story with it's unique imagery. I also like how pieces of apparently broken urban life weave a single and bigger story. I loved "cracked out Jane" and her rosary.

My advice: watch out for abstracts and cliches. First, find all your abstracts (love, death, hate, etc.) and see if you can convey those without using them. When too many abstracts are used without either being reconstructed or backed up by concrete imagery, the poems tends to loose some sort of heaviness and immediacy. Also watch out for cliches. "dangerious, complex, fearful world" can pass for a cliche.

Great imagery and characterization.