NEITHER HEAVEN NOR HELL IS MAYFAIR PARK
(Scientific Poetry without moral comment)

A few wild birds
still sift through the fog
starveling secrets
are whispered through the elm leaves.
A white butterfly bounces through
the black rusted chain link fence.

The train approaches on the right.
On a dim left horizon
through the mist
children can be seen
playing on the tracks.

Nothing gushes from
the red brick smoke stack
obscured by diesel exhaust from
the engine as it approaches
lugging empty cars, scrap tin,
stacks of lumber and one hobo.

Quietly the old brick walk
awaits the vibration of another train
while a woman on a billboard
heralds the manufactured truth
of a taste worth switching to.

The Amtrack hustles by
with a silent wind
on a cool summer day,
in a rising tide of heat:
a small puddle of water
evaporates on a railroad tie.

Train lights approach
from two directions
in obedience to the signals
both red and green.

The vibration of the automobiles below
translate into birdsong
by futurist pigeons
cogitating their transparent question:

Will the trains still run on time
after the millennium?
Which taste is worth switching to?
And what kind of person
stands around having conversations
with briock walls, anyway?