'Who listens to classical music, anyway? ' <br /> -Bill Bored, 'Urban Contemporary.' <br /> <br />structural dawn, vacant skies <br />meaningless streets, desolate sidewalks <br />deserted now in this hour after sunrise <br />get used to the directionlessness <br />(drifting aimlessly like a boat with <br />broken rudder) <br />get used to the poverty <br />get used to the filthy clothes and <br />unshaven faces <br />(prematurely aged by the sun's <br />ultraviolet rays) <br />of those who populate this barren <br />landscape <br />of run down hotels and abandoned <br />buildings <br />how many days, how many days <br />days without names, each one like the <br />others <br />got to remember who i am <br />got to remember who i am supposed to <br />be <br />got to remember the dreams and visions <br />of my youth, <br />the ideals i lived my life for <br />got to remember my name <br />always get $1.25 for beer, the Rx for <br />alcohol <br />that helps to forget the hopelessness <br />helps to forget the dreams that won't <br />come true <br />helps to forget who i was and the life i <br />used to lead <br />helps to forget where i am and how i got <br />here <br />helps to face another day without hope <br />of change <br />the stench of urine, the smell of decay <br />the back alleys of broken glass <br />plastic bags and bottle caps <br />the trash strewn in disarray <br />a symphony of crumpled newspapers <br />old rags and cardboard boxes <br />strung like garlands and arabesques <br />overflowing the dumpster <br />in cascades like colored streamers <br /> <br />(NOTE: Charon ferried the souls of the dead across the River Acheron to the underworld, but only for a price. Those who could not pay, who had no coin to toss, or who could not afford a proper burial were denied passage and condemned to wander 100 years without a resting place.)<br /><br />Theresa Haffner<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/acheron-2/
