Truth is.. II

I walked, pushing my legs forward
uncontrollably
at noon until i was
lost
i wanted to be very lost
to feel
what it is to be utterly lost
and to own nothing
i wanted to become one with
and disappear into
the bowels of this
reddish  and grey clad  dirty
disgusting
desolate city
i made my self sink under
the surface of this swamp
swimming in dirty water more than walking
gliding
sloshing in the mud puddles and the trash piles
covering my head with a half-domed hood
stepping into the cracked sidewalks and the
dirty asphalt and into the crackhead quarter.

I saw three whores.
I saw a plot of purple basil.
I saw an old woman wearing a chinese hat.
I saw a three legged dog peeing.
I saw a needle.
I saw broken and burned out houses.
I saw  a youth selling ice  to a strung out girl.
I saw a tree turning colors.
I saw the river hiding behind the elms.
I saw an old man and his respirator tank, smoking, coughing uncontrollably.
I saw a mother beating her daughter.
I saw discount stores selling cheap liquor.
I saw overgrown gardens full of crabgrass and tired bushes.
I saw a girl, no more than sixteen, with dead eyes.
I saw graffiti, apple-red graffiti with black ribbons
I saw the decrepit greek restaurant, a parthenon of kitsch, full of ashen faces.
I saw bottles of cheap gin littering the street corner next to the kindergarten.
I saw a giant oak tree praying, upright, proud, older than most, with red leaves, bright, with veins like open arms.
I saw a  chain link fence at the end of the street.


And I stopped walking.