My daily drive; today through pouring rain,
Behind road fog snaking towards me from the truck ahead,
Slowly approaching the cloud-shrouded glass and metal,
Framed by downtown's bustling highways.

Graffiti on walls and overpasses define the city climate
Testimony of a divided space and time
Obscenities litter the viaducts and road signs
Racial slurs and sexual innuendos graphically apparent.

Beggars crowd each corner light.
Wheel chaired homeless; missing limbs and teeth,
Huddled beneath layers of sweaters and tattered jackets,
Mumbling into their private cyberspace of unreality.

Parking lots crowded with brown skinned men,
Waiting for one day's employment to wander by,
Speaking a language that is becoming the norm,
Twelve deep clustered in one room flats.

Sirens wail as the babies cry,
Crack head infants abandoned to a depleted system,
Children birthing children into a burdened structure,
Seams bursting in the waistcoat of mankind.