American Reality



Richness beware!!!
cultural collision ahead
Amtrak rails reveal real America
sludgy water colored blue or any other unnatural coloure
old, poor, huddle by real can fire
 sleep under interstate
 	dig in junk piles
 		rusted metal
historic buildings with train ramps
 	piles of dust reach up to them
 	graffiti covers their faces
scrub weeds
garbage, not trash
 	parallel roadways
old sheds rusting
rotting lumber
tires, bottles, wire
abandoned trailers
fire gutted houses
deep south movies look
 	grazeland for cows, egrets
 	wrinkled woman sits in porch swing
 	black woman sweeps slatboard porch
industrials
 	brickworks
 	shipbuilders
 		from which you can identify one of your yachts
forests few...
 	a twinkle in your eye when you see cleared land
 	rich development
 	lone port-o-let on construction site
as you pass a cemetery that has no caretaker
 	twinkle turns to tears
 	mother's grave forgotten
 	knocked over and buried by brush and fill dirt
 
painfully slow to look at reality isn't it?



R. David Paine
2:00pm
1/17/88