These morning are like stale coffee;
the numbing, wet asphalt.
    Every frozen piece of metal railing,
seems like such a bone-breaking and jerky awakening.
The silence yelling like a prison-cell inmate,
churring every ounce of warmth
    from the embattled street lamps.

At several points, the sidewalk cracks,
black with gum stains.
dead leaves pitter-pattered through the soggy
mosh pits of sewer water.
    raging brown dirt constrasts the white paint
faced out on the walls.
    Two shrinking shadows. That ugly American Apparel billboard.
Sumatriptan kind of sunrise. Soggy toast.
Bike racks emptied by the maintenance man.

Dreary old drunk sputtering his steps: two paces forward.
One back.
Each crufty oak branch begrimed in between bus stop benches.
With a sulky, hoary Russian woman and two little fury eyes.
    Blood shot irises, strung-out, hanging lifeless like the crucified.
This crucible of miseries and wilted petals–brown, never white.
    Always tired, sleepers in the morning.

Mornings like these must swallow those pain killers.
    Pill bottles. Dusty bricks. Grumpy-looking paint cans.
Like the devil himself won’t even wake up this early.
Like no one except the resentful sun ever gets up.
    Like the whip cracks down upon time itself.