Streets Quartet
- [Southern Security]
-
- To Andover crossed with careful watch
- For fences left unlatched
- And dogs unchained in full disdain
- Of passing gratis glance
- At a corner there were two that stood
- Grinding gears for tongues
- But we were born a louder breed
- Barks rolling from our lungs
- Hold confidence in swinging hips
- In eyes a bluster lit
- For locks can claim their causes just
- And keep our legs unbit
- Though sad to see the chains and gates
- For safety comes a cost
- Our rolling freedom footfalls worth
- All paid in others' loss
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-
- [Westerly Uncertainty]
-
- To Vernice strode, beloved, quote
- Gypsies, release me this curse
- The world weighs down the ones
- Caught walking underneath
- And shoulders strong can crack along
- The ridges left by bricks
- Instead of trying to carry me home
- Just hold me close beside
- With caution calm and palm to palm
- We'll stumble over branches
- And break our knees together
- So matching casts our consciousness
- Can mend these fractured fortunes
- Futures welded warmest chance
- With coldest calculations
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-
- [North-bound Breakspeed]
-
- So Stickney stretched for miles on but only feet for us
- Before the train had roared across to carry
- Things we'd never get to see to places
- We'd never find the time to visit
- And left us running next to it
- In the opposite direction
- And running
- Parallel
- We could almost
- Catch up
- But then
- We fell back
- Again
- And
- Were
- Almost
- Moving
- Back
- Wards...................................It
- Took....................................Us
- An..................................Entire
- Train's...........................Length
- To......................................Go
- ........................................Just
- ........................................Two
- ....................................Blocks
- ......................With heavy wind
- .................Resistance pressing
- .........Against our faces, throats
- ......And arms until it sped, sped
- Up and left us to move at our own speed again
-
- Time travel is dangerous for the inexperienced
- But we, we tame minutes with meticulous
- Methods developed in the most secret of ways
- Running next to the trains and raising our voices,
- “Let not this slipping second buck me from my well-earned seat,
- This saddle lashed across the back of concepts abstract,
- Atop a minute molded of pure activity!”
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-
- [Eastern Optimism]
-
- At Gibson's end came small surrenders
- In the form of a chain-link fence
- And a gate with locks clicked tightly closed
- In an intimidating click-clack dance
-
- “This gate! This gate!”
- I used to cry
- When it towered high above my head,
- “Some day I swear I'll be strong enough
- To rip it right off of its stand!”
-
- And now just a well-placed shoulder nudge
- Could rob it of its vertical might
- But if I tore it down now,
- If I let us all out,
- I'd be dealing us a terrible slight
-
- Because, unburdened, the ones here now
- What could they hope to do?
- With no gate to smash,
- No cage to shake,
- They'd have no goal of breaking through
-
- No, for now, this bastard stands
- With his wind-rattled icy glare
- For I know now
- What I couldn't have guessed,
- That it holds not the ones who leave it there
-
- So grow with a rust-lusty sense of sickness
- At the Gate that holds us in
- And when you're strong enough to knock it down
- You'll join in knowing how weak it is.