12.19.02 [Attn. Asswipe]
Dear jerkoff in the goddamned SUV
(Of course) who nearly T-boned us this morn:
The stop sign there was plain enough to see.
I guess Your Highness must think he was born
With dispensation from the law, not torn
Clean from a human womb like all the rest.
Against your kind, why bother with a horn?
We took the right of way with caution, lest
Some wad like you should complicate the test
That is the five-way junction where the streets
Laguna and Guerrero have expressed
Their love to Hermann and to Market. Feats
Of care, not idiocy, are needed here.
Next time, dislodge your fat head from your rear.
12.16.02 [Season's Gratings]
Perhaps it's just the shortened season that's
Reduced my yearly lack of Christmas joy
Down to a tiny pest'ring, as of gnats.
And yet it may turn out my little ploy —
Ignoring seasonal demands — while coy,
May fail now that I must attend to gifts
And such. And so, lest needles that annoy
Me slightly pile up into piney drifts
Of Xmas excess, let's ensure my lifts
Of mood remain aloft, and pitch a dart
To vent my mind. Through darkened dreams it sifts
And picks out this grim, gleeful wish: let's start
A love train and derail it so it wipes
Out all the Gaps and all their fucking stripes.
12.05.02 [Transitory]
Two years of being dependent upon roads
Have closed; again I'm using transport mass.
An AC Transit schedule change helped loads
As did a benefit that shows real class:
Commuter checks from work. These now surpass
The former cost and excess time consumed
In using bus and BART instead of gas.
Where once in freeway traffic I had fumed,
A far more calm commute has been exhumed.
But 'cause the trip takes longer by these means
And yields control to others, I'm presumed
By some co-workers to have lost my beans.
So to explain my choice, let us compare
The route requiring toll to that of fare.
The asphalt trail extends for twenty miles
That sometimes takes an hour to traverse.
The wall of vehicles frustrates and riles
Me with its slowness, but what's even worse
Are all the selfish drivers whose perverse
Belief that rules and lines designed to keep
Us moving don't apply to them. I curse
These jerks who cut me off, and hope they reap
Their bitter karma. While the assholes beep
Their horns, my silent crucible boils up.
The cost of each day's stress parade grows steep:
I help to drain earth's finite fossil cup
And feed a perilous contention bone
By driving daily forty miles alone.
By contrast, using foot and bus and rail
Is one half-hour more from door to door,
Or still more if a schedule should fail.
But all that time is mine. I'm free to pore
At leisure over books, whose fact or lore
I've been neglecting two years at the wheel,
Or write a sonnet. Or, since I don't snore,
I can, with half an eye on stations, steal
Some winks. Instead of highway rage I feel
The joy of joining in the urban mix —
Not always fun, yet it holds strong appeal.
Beats facing all those automotive dicks.
Toward pain and waste their drive is clearly steered.
Now does eschewing cars seem all that weird?
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