A Shortcut Revisited

Let's workshop this sequence of four strict Shakespearean sonnets that center around forest railroad tracks in a drugged-out town of gutted factories in need of being turned into hipster lofts

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A Shortcut Revisited

1

Our buckled tracks have trains just limp along
on crippled rails that lost their heads to rust
which covers them (tempura over prawn)
and crumbles when its touched to orange dust.

No grip on spikes the crossties more like mulch
now merged with washed out ballast stone below.
What else to do but drink some beer and smoke,
perhaps enough for pain in words to flow?

Embarked again, alert, alone, afraid
our hearts accelerate cocaine and shrooms 
while pupils oscillate as if insane 
consuming mixtape rap of MF DOOM.

The drunkards down collapsed have eyes that leer
alive enough to ask “Got change for beer?”

2

These tracks impale a town of pails indoors;
a town where crack’s preferred much more than blow;
where little girls will grow to toothless whores
who hook for dough to kill their tummy show. 
 
With cricket chirping loud at close of day, 
the Dutchies spark between some kids who sit
on rubber-tire junk while mixtapes play
through speakers blown on Sony boomboxes. 

A town of death without a doctor’s smile;
a town where loveliness will go to waste;
where moms will save the pipe before a child
at risk of falling down the Breakneck face.

Here moms will call their daughters “sluts” if fucked 
by dads in search of drunken nighttime touch.

3

Confined by weeds, these tracks hold bums with songs—
syringes, shells of long forgotten crimes.
Their sinews steel, their beams, advance along 
a creek whose life is rare from pesticide.

Yet summer kids will jump inside from cliffs
despite that Texaco’s in sight upstream
where can-amassing bums will bathe and piss
while guarding shopping carts from passing thieves.

The Groveville drunk is blind but knows just how
to walk these tracks, his echoes showing signs 
of when to sit and when to turn around—
and sure enough a bottle he will find.

He sips despite the rocks that reach his face 
from kids who see themselves in such disgrace.

4

You often hike this narrow route at night
on tracks where trains of freight no longer pass.
Beset alone in woods your fingers tight.
Might forces hide in waiting to harass?

A shopping cart deserted trips you good.
Your presence more exposed, you pick up stones
and try to step just on the planks of wood—
a vain attempt to keep unheard, unknown.

For hush’s sake you even hold your breath
despite the tones you’re kicking with your feet
and that with lack of air you can’t fight death.
It’s almost like you’re asking for defeat.

Mere wind through boughs, no fiend with serpent rod, 
tonight presents no need for tough façade.

This piece is unpublished, although a version was published in the the Penwood Review in 2012

Photo: Aly-Al